What's Your Weird?

Have you ever felt like “the weird one?” Like, “Is there something wrong with me” or like “Am I the odd one or are all others?” – You’re not alone! I have lived and worked on five continents, but the truth is, I have felt like the weird one for most of my life, even back in Germany, where I grew up; even before I moved abroad into different cultures, where it became even more obvious.

As a little girl growing up on a farm in a small village, my thinking was different to the thinking of most people around me. I was what people call a “hopeless dreamer” but in reality, I was a “hopeful dreamer.” I had such big dreams, despite any physical reality I was seeing around me that might have contradicted these dreams. And then I went to school, and I was educated out of dreaming, out of seeing possibilities that were not reflected in my then physical reality… Gladly, I never lost that ability altogether… I was far too curious and adventurous, and so I exchanged the village at 19 for Munich, and at 26, Germany for the world. And just recently, in the last few years, I finally I’ve learned to bring my true capacity of dreaming back into my life in the form of powerful visioning, which I am currently transforming to the next level. But more about that some other time… Back to weird:

Feeling weird didn’t stop in Germany. As I ventured out into the world, I was often the only German (and as such sort of weird again), and later, mostly because of my cultural interests like music and dance, and because of my circle of friends, I was often the only white person in the room, standing out without wanting to. There’s actually a funny episode I want to quickly share with you: One Sunday afternoon, I was sitting in a Brooklyn basement attending a stand-up comedy event, all dressed in black, watching a beautiful Nigerian comedian doing her show, and suddenly, she turned to me and said: “and then there’s this white lady…” To which I looked down at my all-black clothes, and I said: “Oh my god, I thought I’d covered it up perfectly, but you looked right through me!” It was funny, for sure, and we all laughed together, but there was also a taste of “I don’t belong here” that reached me through her words. A taste of not belonging that I have felt so often before and after… as someone who has moved from country to country and who often finds herself in environments where she is the only German, the only white, the only woman or the only one with views that might sound alien to others around me. I’m just not someone who consumes mainstream as my reality without questioning it. I do my research and then shape my own opinion, and I have a strong intuitive vein that adds its own input.

So yes, I have traveled and moved a lot and I have become resilient in terms of feeling different, especially as my “being different” in certain locations also made me more prone to severe attempts of corruption and fraud.

And of course, I have also absorbed many aspects of other cultures through my life experiences in many countries on several continents; all these locations have shaped who I am today. I often feel like a puzzle composed of several different cultural and geographic influences. However, even to this day, every time I move, it implies arriving in a new location, being different and feeling a bit isolated at first, especially in environments that are less diverse and have a strong local and closed culture. It’s just part of the experience, and that’s ok.

Today, I call my weirdness my Distinctive Uniqueness, and it’s become an integral part of my signature process Powerful Leadership Transformation (PLT)TM. Because what does weird really mean? It means different, not ordinary… but rather, extraordinary. When we feel different, we tend to think “what’s wrong with me?” When the question really should be: “What’s right with me?”

So… what’s your weird?