Are You a Deviant? The word deviant gets used like an insult. As if deviation means wrong. Bad. Broken. It doesn’t. It simply means you didn’t follow the norm. And let’s be honest. Why would you want to? Normal is average. Average is the bottom of the top. The top of the bottom. The cream of the crap. Normal means doing what most people do. Thinking what most people think. Living how most people live. ...And most people live lives of quiet desperation. Same routines. Same conversations. Same complaints. Different faces. The well trodden path is popular for a reason. It feels safe. Predictable. Socially acceptable. But it rarely leads anywhere extraordinary. Every breakthrough. Every innovation. Every fulfilled life. Came from someone willing to deviate. Someone who was labelled difficult. Different. Too much. Unconventional. Not because they were wrong. But because they didn’t fit. Deviating doesn’t make you a deviant. It makes you conscious. It means you questioned the default. You chose curiosity over comfort. You took the road less travelled. And yes, it’s harder. Lonelier. Less applauded. But the rewards are bigger. Freedom. Fulfilment. Ownership of your own life. So if you deviate, good. You’re probably on the right path. The masses can keep the norm. I’ll take the view from the road they were too afraid to walk.

Most people are not trapped. They are contained. Same routines. Same conversations. Same assumptions. Same view, every single day. And because the water feels familiar, they call it safe. Because the glass is invisible, they call it freedom. The problem is not that people lack opportunity. The problem is that they stop questioning the edges of their world. Like a fish in a bowl, you can live a full life swimming in circles and never once ask whether the bowl is the world, or just the container you were placed in. Nothing changes inside the bowl. Only the view does. And the view only changes when the bowl moves. That is why growth feels uncomfortable. It is not the effort. It is the disorientation. New angles. New light. New questions. The mind resists this because certainty feels like security, even when it is quietly suffocating you. Most people are not afraid of failure. They are afraid of discovering that the life they built was smaller than it needed to be. The moment you question the bowl, the spell breaks. You start to see that many of the limits you accepted were never walls, just habits you stopped noticing. The remembering is not about becoming someone new. It is about seeing more clearly. Same fish. Same water. Different view. And once you see that the bowl can move, you can never unsee it. That is when real freedom begins.

At first glance, it sounds harmless. Reasonable, even. But listen closely to showing what it really asks of you. Conform means to shape yourself to fit. Not to discover who you are. Not to create. Not to question. To fit. The word comes from the idea of being pressed into a mould. Smoothed. Aligned. Standardised. Conformity does not ask, “What do you think?” It asks, “Will you comply?” It rewards agreement over awareness. Obedience over originality. Acceptance over truth. The moment you conform, thinking is outsourced. Creativity is muted. Responsibility quietly disappears. You stop asking whether something is right, meaningful, or alive. You only ask whether it will be approved. Conformity is comfortable. That is its greatest danger. It keeps you safe, but small. Included, but interchangeable. Busy, but not fulfilled. Every system that depends on control loves conformity. Every system that depends on progress quietly fears those who refuse it. Nothing new has ever come from fitting in. No breakthrough. No truth. No real freedom. Growth begins the moment you feel the pressure to conform and choose awareness instead. Not rebellion. Not noise. Just the courage to think, create, and stand where you are, without shrinking to belong. Conformity asks you to disappear politely. Life asks you to show up fully. Choose carefully.

Psychologists will often say: 'Thoughts and feelings are not facts' And that’s usually presented as a warning. As if facts are the only safe ground to stand on. But here’s the thing. Most facts are incomplete. Most facts are contextual. Most facts are part of a story that hasn’t finished yet. Factually, a bee can’t fly. Based on its wing size and body weight, the science says it’s impossible. And yet, it does. So called EXPERTS said: The four-minute mile was impossible. Until it wasn’t. Reaching the moon was impossible. Until it happened. History is full of things that were labelled stupid, unrealistic, or factually impossible, right up until the moment they were achieved. Then, interestingly, the science caught up. Maybe the facts weren’t wrong. Maybe they were just early. When you look at the most advanced civilisations, not in economic terms but in human terms, the pattern repeats. Look at the blue zones across the world. countries where the 'average' person lives to over 100 years old not on drugs and machines but long, fulfilled lives. They don’t obsess over data or status. They value stillness. Connection. Ritual. Trust in inner signals. Thoughts. Feelings. Intuition. And in business, the same truth quietly shows up. Most genuinely successful entrepreneurs, not the loud ones on social media but the proven ones, will tell you the same thing. Mindset is at least 95% of success. Not the skillset. Not the spreadsheets. Not the facts. Because thoughts and feelings are often the starting point. The facts follow later. So maybe the real danger isn’t ignoring facts. Maybe it’s letting them shut you down before the story has had a chance to unfold. Never let the facts get in the way of your success. Sometimes the feeling knows before the data does.

It doesn’t. It comes from listening. The problem is, most of us never stop long enough to hear anything useful: We fill every gap with noise. Podcasts. Opinions. Advice. Other people’s urgency. And then we wonder why we feel overwhelmed. Silence isn’t empty. It’s informative. When you slow down, patterns show up. When you stop reacting, better decisions surface. When you pause, the right next step becomes obvious. In business, the worst decisions are usually made in noise. The best ones are made in quiet. Not meditation on a mountain. Just space: - Space before replying. - Space before deciding. - Space before saying yes. You don’t need more information. You need fewer interruptions. Create silence. Then listen. That’s where clarity lives.