Real talk: being different sorta sucks. At least at first. There’s a big part of us that wants to blend in with the herd and be “normal” – whatever normal is. There’s safety and ease in the idea of being the same as everyone else. Less judgement, more predictability – sounds great.
There are countless songs, book and movie themes that tell us we need to “be ourselves” and “be different” (I’ve even written about it here several times) but being unique is not always fun. It can come with loneliness, confusion, judgement, and many other unsavoury reactions and feelings.
Would it be easier to go with the crowd and just blend in? Of course. The problem is, when you dim your light or try to shove yourself into a mold, you just end up burned or hurt.
Personally, I’ve never really felt like I fit in. I’ve always felt different, and it’s taken me years to celebrate and calibrate the aspects of myself that make me an original.
When I was an actor in Toronto, I went to countless auditions from TV shows to fast-food commercials. Often, my agent would submit me for a role with physical traits that matched mine, so naturally I would show up to castings where every guy looked just like me. We were all “the same”, but had to stand out to the casting directors somehow. It was always a total $#!% show and made me feel like I wasn’t anything special.
Toward the end of my time living in the city, I finally adopted a different approach. I had an audition for a one-liner on a TV show. These were always the hardest roles to book because you have to create a character around only one line of dialogue. Stand out, but be invisible. Be important, but not too important. I told you, it’s a $#!% show. Time for a different tactic.
For this particular audition I was to play a CIA agent eating lunch at a diner. I knew everyone was going to walk into the auditions wearing a suit, so I went in jeans and a t-shirt. I knew everyone would overact, so I underacted. I knew everyone would really want the part so I acted like I didn’t care (because I didn’t). I booked that show, then the next one, then the next one.
I discovered that being different isn’t just an innate quality, it’s a fantastic strategy you can consciously fine-tune. Naturally, it only made sense that the business I would eventually create would have to be different and original, too.
big idea in a small town
When we first opened, I reached out to a local paper about doing a story on our studio. I worked hard on a press release that presented several different angles on why readers would be interested in what we created at Vortex.
Now, I’ve seen the local news write about many new businesses in town and I’ve also read stories about coyote poop on the hiking trails, so to me the Vortex story was a no-brainer: “a born-and-raised Collingwood dude returns to his hometown to open a first of its kind, high-tech, world-class wellness studio with his husband for the residents and visitors of the area to experience new solutions for self care so they can thrive in their lives”. Easy pitch right?
This is the response I got from the editor: “Hi Daniel, I don’t think it’s a good fit. Good luck with your business.”
I’d be lying if I said this didn’t make me feel $#!%tier than coyote poop. I didn’t (and still don’t) understand how we weren’t worthy of showcasing to the community, but thankfully we’ve been successful without the support of that particular editor.
In all honesty, I had a chip on my shoulder about this for almost 2 years, but then I finally let it go and thought to myself “if the small town news doesn’t want us, we’ll wait for something bigger.”
A few months later, this past February, I was waking up at the crack of dawn to get to Vortex to film two live segments on Canada’s #1 morning show, Breakfast Television. The producers thought our studio was amazing and were thankful for the fantastic content we created for their viewers.
Following my appearance on the show, our website traffic went up 1200%. Then we had people driving from all over the province – from Midland to Muskoka, Oshawa to Ottawa – coming to Collingwood to check us out. People were literally booking hotels and driving 5-6 hours to experience Vortex. It was mind-blowing and, because of that morning show exposure, we still get people coming in just to visit the lil’ wellness studio that didn’t fit in.
daring to be different
It’s in my bones to be different and that plays out on a daily basis as I navigate being the CEO in the wellness industry. It’s challenging to go against the grain, but it can also be very rewarding.
There are proven psychological tactics you can use in business, but I simply have to approach it differently. I don’t want to approach marketing with a scarcity mindset. I don’t want to play off people’s insecurities to get them to buy my services. I don’t want to do Black Friday sales. All of these methods work extremely well, but it’s not me, so I can’t do it. It’s one part strategy and 10 parts stubbornness.
Even this weekly newsletter doesn’t make conventional business sense. If I were following the playbook, these emails would be all “sell sell sell” and provide “amazing offers!” – but it’s evolved into a community of readers who just want to feel good, which is what we do at Vortex!
The way I see it, I just want to reach out once a week and remind you that we’re here. Whether you come to Vortex once a year, once a day, or never, I think giving a glimpse into who we are is much more important than hijacking your psychology to make money. As a result, the Vibe has become increasingly popular, we have a super high engagement rate and I have many many people who tell me “I never read newsletters in my inbox but I read yours every week!”.
People respond to The Vibe and tell me how the message has resonated with them, or how it was exactly what they needed to hear, or how it’s become their Friday ritual to cozy up with tea and dive into the week’s issue. I appreciate it so much! I’ve been stopped on the street, at the gym, restaurants, by people who say how much they enjoy it. That’s not “normal” for a f!@#in’ newsletter!
Does this always translate to sales for my business? Nope. But do people think highly of Vortex as a result of the value we provide in a simple newsletter? Absolutely.
Here’s the thing: I’m not mentioning anything today as a reason to brag (trust me, I am a ball of insecurity on the best of days), I say this to illustrate that owning your originality and uniqueness is the path to greatness.
And I don’t say this because I’ve reached greatness, I say it because it’s become very obvious to me that being your authentic self, being different, and honing the parts of you that are original is how you can make massive waves in the world.
We set out to create something incredibly unique, and even though that means we have to explain who we are and what we do 831,125,897 times, it’s worth it. Even though we’ll probably always have to answer the phone and tell people we don’t do massage or spin classes, it’s worth it. Maybe one day down the road, the world might have shifted enough where more studios like us open up and people will say “Oh! It’s like Vortex!”. We’re blazing a trail in the wellness world, folks!
So let this be another reminder to be so YOU that people wonder who the hell you are, where the hell you came from, and how the hell they can be more like you… by being more of themselves.