How to Be Remarkable

The antidote to "toxic positivity".

San Diego, CA—Photo by MJ

Something “remarkable” is defined as “unusual, interesting, or unique”.

Someone remarkable is someone worth paying attention to. Someone who does things out of the ordinary. Someone who excels.

But how do you become remarkable?

Recently, I read the book So Good They Can’t Ignore You by Cal Newport, and the ideas in the book threw everything I thought I knew about career development, skill development, and excellence straight on its head. It made me realize that the moves that have happened for and against me in my 8-year career as a grappler and 3-year career as a writer haven’t happened for the reasons I thought they had.

It made me realize that I’ve been wrong about a lot of things.

It made me realize that in truth, if peace, happiness, or any of those other things I like to think about are your “goals”, nothing truly matters besides becoming remarkable.

Here’s how you can do it.

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Focus on skills above everything else.

A lot of people today focus on perception over execution.

They want to seem successful and competent more than they want to be competent. They want the perks of winning, but they’re not interested in getting the reps to build the specific skills that will help them win.

If you want remarkability you cannot do this. You must be willing to do the hard things to get hard-earned results.

You need to spend an extremely long time deliberately practicing the skill at which you want to be remarkable — Jiu-Jitsu, writing, storytelling, etc. You need to fail and persevere through failure over and over again.

Skill requires hard work. It requires resilience. It requires volume.

This is the first step to building a career.

Make yourself useful.

When I was 23, I was pretty depressed, living in my mom’s basement, and I had no idea what I wanted “to do with my life”. It was a rough time.

At the time, I thought that eventually, if I waited long enough for the right moment, I’d bump into some idea, opportunity, or skill that would allow me to “live my dreams and pursue my passions”.

I was wrong — almost dead wrong.

Instead of “pursuing my passions” (which admittedly, is what I thought I did for a long time), I tried to make myself useful. I started freelance copywriting. I started teaching Jiu-Jitsu. One thing led to another, and I started my newsletter, wrote my first ebooks, and landed my first ghostwriting clients.

That was how I turned my life around in my mid-20s, and that’s the advice I’d give to anyone who’s lost or “stuck” when trying to be “remarkable”.

Don’t follow passions, don’t take wild chances, and don’t be stupid.

To be remarkable, you need to build skills and you need to apply those skills in a useful way.

Swallow your pride.

The only 3 things I really think I’m any good at in this life are writing, doing Jiu-Jitsu, and teaching

The way that I’ve built my skills in those areas to a point where I’ve been able to provide a sort of “value” has not come easy.

I’ve written close to 500 articles on Medium (many of which only have a few dozen views each), 250 on Substack, and hundreds of others for clients.

I’ve competed on small, dingy Jiu-Jitsu shows with sketchy promoters — some of whom still owe me money. Welcome to “professional Jiu-Jitsu”.

Regardless, all of the things that I’ve managed to do at least kind of well in life have come from swallowing my pride and accepting something less than ideal — at first — so that I can work my way up to something truly worth pursuing.

If you want to become remarkable, swallow your pride.

Build connections with the right people.

This is probably the most underrated aspect of improving your life situation.

There’s this illusion amongst highly successful people that makes everyone seem “self-made” or like they’ve built whatever they have from scratch. I know I always used to think that way when I’d look at top athletes in Jiu-Jitsu or top writers on the internet.

But that’s just not true. The best guys all know each other.

If you’re really good and no one knows you, you might not be that good. You’re definitely not “so good they can’t ignore you”.

If you want to be successful in any field, you need to surround yourself with other people who are successful in that same field.

People who are driven. People who don’t settle. People who work hard and aren’t afraid to test themselves.

If you want to become remarkable, you need to surround yourself with people who are more remarkable than you. This will force you to push yourself to new heights and new limits.

It’s sink or swim. That seems to be the only way to do it.

The best way to get attention is to be a giant among pygmies, but the best way to succeed is to be a giant among giants.

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Closing Thoughts

For a long time, I had what Cal Newport describes as “a passion mindset” about work and life.

This is probably because I grew up listening to YouTube videos telling me to follow my passion, taking career tests to help me “find my passion”, and then spent years in college at an American university, where I was constantly told I was going to “help change the world”.

I had a mindset that if I just found the right thing to do, then everything would be okay. I would be happy.

The problem is that this mindset breeds anxiety. It breeds “analysis paralysis”, where you’re terrified to do anything because everything could be the wrong thing.

You’re so anxious that it doesn’t dawn on you that in reality, anything could be the right thing — if you become exceptional at it. The key to a fulfilling career is not to “do what you love”, it’s to do work you’re ridiculously good at.

Here’s how you get good (and marketable) at anything:

• Focus on skills

• Make yourself useful

• Swallow your pride

• Build connections with the right people

It’s not easy, but nothing worth a damn ever is.

“If you want to love what you do, abandon the passion mindset (“what can the world offer me?”) and instead adopt the craftsman mindset (“what can I offer the world?”).” — Cal Newport

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Also published this week:

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