Bloom Your Mind

Ep 150: Being Original

• Marie McDonald

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Individuality is one of the greatest freedoms of our culture—and also one of its biggest traps.

The beauty of individuality is that it allows us to hear our own desires, define our own values, and express our unique contribution to the world. It fuels creativity, innovation, and self-discovery. But when the desire to be original stops us from taking action, it becomes an Achilles’ heel.

In this episode, we talk about the tension between wanting to be original and wanting to be effective—and why the world needs you focused on the latter. Because when we obsess over originality, we make our ideas about us. But the truth is, it’s not about us. It’s about helping, contributing, and using our unique voices to make the world better.

You’ll hear stories, metaphors, and examples—from surgeons to songwriters, from small community groups to global change movements—that illustrate this truth: the fact that you do the thing matters infinitely more than it being one of a kind.


What You’ll Learn in This Episode

  • The difference between originality (ego) and effectiveness (impact).
  • Why your contribution matters more than how “unique” it is.
    How chasing originality can paralyze creativity and delay action.
  • Why it’s more powerful to focus on helping, healing, and building than standing out.
  • A metaphor for how our individual actions can collectively turn the tide of humanity—like a flock of birds shifting direction together.


Right now, the world feels heavy to many people. That’s exactly why your contribution matters. Every positive action you take—every group you start, every song you write, every piece of art, blog, class, or community you build—helps counterbalance the negative.

Your voice will land with someone that no one else’s can. Your work will reach people that no one else could reach. And when each of us focuses on being effective, we turn the whole flock toward something better—one small action at a time.

Be one of the birds that turns the flock. Get your idea going. The world needs what you have to give.


Mentioned in this episode:

  • Episode 1: You’re the one we want 
  • The Moxie Mastermind — for women turning their ideas into real, world-changing projects.
  • Harvard Happiness Study — the link between contribution, connection, and well-being.

How to connect with Marie:

JOIN THE BLOOM ROOM!
We'll take all these ideas and apply them to our lives. Follow me on Instagram at @the.bloom.coach to learn more and snag a spot in my group coaching program!

SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to the Bloom Your Mind Podcast, where we take all of your ideas for what you want and we turn them into real things. I'm your host, certified coach Marie McDonald. Let's get into it. Hello everyone, and welcome to episode number 150 of the Bloom Your Mind podcast. What? 150. That's a milestone, right? I mean, just because it's a the number 150. I don't know. Seems amazing to me. So congratulations to us for being here together. I am gonna start this intro with the most random thing that has been making me so happy, but that also the reason that I'm sharing it here, I've actually thought about this for a few weeks about sharing this on the podcast is because I think it's really a way that families and people that live together or work together can kick off their days in a way that feels really good and wonderful and connecting. And the reason that I bring this up is because there are lots of things when we wake up in the morning and when we get home from work at night that I coach people on. Lots of things that get in our way that make our brain spin, that make us feel stressed. So if we take the morning, for example, when we're sleeping, I've said this many times on the podcast, but when we're sleeping, we don't have our conscious mind there present as a filter to filter through all of the automatic stuff that comes up. We know this, right? We dream, we have weird dreams. We wake up in the morning, we're like, what was that dream? All kinds of things come up in the night that are like our unconscious mind having a party. We also, some of us, when we're stressed, will wake up in the middle of the night and our brains are kind of spinning on something because we don't have our conscious mind ready to go to like clamp down on those things and push our feelings down, right? So they're there. When we wake up first thing in the morning, we might have more negative feelings, more negative thoughts, because that negative bias that our brain has has been running all night long. The unconscious stuff has been running all night long. It won't happen to us every morning, probably. It won't happen to everyone. But that is one thing that people tend to experience is that morning brain that's a little bit rough. Another thing that people tend to experience is a struggle around what to do first thing in the morning. Do they like sit and meditate or do they hop right on their phone? And when people get right onto their phone, they describe feeling really stressed out right away because there might be a bunch of emails or news or pop-ups that just immediately send our brain into stress, anxiety, worry, all those things. Maybe we wake up in the morning and we're just like, I've got a big day ahead of me, and it's like go, go, go, and we're really tired. There's lots of things that can happen in the morning that can start our day off kind of disconnected and stressed. And the other thing I hear is that in the evenings, when people get home from whatever, wherever they've been in their day, it can feel similar. They have been through a stressful day, they've been having a lot of work or a lot of responsibilities or whatever happened during the day, they walk in the door and there's just a lot to do. I specifically hear adults who are responsible for children feeling this way, where they get in the door and there's just so much to take care of at home that it just feels like nonstop. So here's a little thing that me and my family do that really helps us with this. And I'm gonna tell you where I learned it first. I was watching a nature documentary on a pack of wild dogs. What was this documentary? Dang it. I can't remember exactly what the name was. I'll try to find it and put it in the show notes. But it was about that, like honed in on a different type of animal on each episode. And my family and I were watching it and we really loved it. And there was this, I think it was called, I think it was something about baby animals. Anyways, there was this whole episode about wild dogs. When this pack of wild dogs first woke up when the sun arose over the horizon, it was like in Africa, these like native dogs that were running around in these packs, right? The sun rose. And the first thing they would do when they would wake up is they would go around to every single member of their pack and wrestle or snuggle to say hello before doing anything else. I mean, maybe they did the down dog stretch, who knows? But they took a minute, no matter how many dogs were in their pack, that's what they did every single morning. And what my family does every single morning is we each go around to every single member of the family and greet each other and say, Good morning. How did you sleep? I often tell my kids, I'm so happy to see you this morning when they open their eyes. Before all of the what are we making for breakfast? What time do we need to be out the door? All of that happens. And that slowing down and looking in each other's eyes and grounding and and with our body language, with our tone, maybe with our words, saying, You are important to me, you're awake, hello, you're here, really sets off all of our days in a really wonderful way. Bonus for me if there's lots of snuggling. I love to snuggle my people. And then the same thing when we get home in the evening, instead of rushing right into whatever has to happen first, there's a greeting of each individual and a real moment of stillness that's like, hi, how was your day? Where are you at? That moment of focus that says you're important to me. And I think that that is something that you can do in work environments too, or in community environments where you just pause before getting into everything and do the pack of wild dogs move where you greet each member of the community with reverence and love. And I think always for me, I like attaching things to humor or to a mnemonic device or a memory device. And that one is really fun for me because I always just take a little flash and thinking about us as a pack of wild dogs, and especially when I greet my actual dog in the morning. I'm like, you're so stoked. We're acting just like your people. So feel free to use the wild dogs move if you're not using it yet. All right. Today we're talking about being original because individuality is one of the great freedoms of the culture that we live in and also one of its weaknesses. And this comes up for the people that I coach a lot. And it came up in the bloom room. We had such a great discussion about it. And I love this topic. And I also started this podcast with this topic. I started this entire podcast with episode one that was about your unique voice. That episode is called You're the One We Want. And I brought in one of my favorite philosophers, Kaja Silverman, who's up from Berkeley, and her philosophy of how the subjectivity of the world is objectively intended, meaning when whatever we see, whatever we say, whatever we notice as we walk around in our unique shoes, in our unique bodies, and filtered by the set of experiences that we have had, what we can see and say and create helps make the world a better place. It helps when we can say something is beautiful, that thing is more realized in its potential because we saw it and we said that. And I love that whole philosophy. I love that idea of individuality. That strength comes because it means this part of our culture, this idea that we are all individuals, creates this great strength because we can find our own way, our own voice. We can figure out what our contribution to the world is going to be on our terms. Where do we want our deep passion to meet the world's needs? We can hear our own desires, we can find our own values. The fact that we have that freedom is an absolutely beautiful thing. And it has led and will continue to lead to all kinds of creativity and innovation. And when we take it too far, it is also an Achilles heel. When our desire to be unique and different stops us from taking action, it's time to pause. When our need to stand out or to be remarkable becomes more important to us than contributing to humanity or our communities, it's time to pause. When we stay stuck in second guessing ourselves because our idea isn't original enough, it stops us from having ideas about the world around us and turning them into real things. Because we're making it about us. And it's not about us. Yes, we are unique and beautiful, and we can say something that has never been said before. We can create things that no one else will ever create because we are a unique being that is happening once ever in this body with this face and this voice with these lived experiences. And everyone else is unique too. And we are a part of that whole of all the others that we're connected with, that we're living in this period of time with, and we are responsible for humanity just like everybody else is. So our contribution has to get out there. Whatever it is, maybe our contribution is just living our life in a beautiful way with integrity. Maybe it's something else that is an invitation for other people to step into. Contributions come in all different shapes and sizes. And I keep hearing about what dark times these are and how hard it is to see the world around us and what's happening and how divisive it all is. And it is hard. I see that. I hear you. I hear everyone saying that. I hear the truth of it. And that is exactly why we need every single person doing something. Taking all that energy that comes from hard and instead of making it part of what creates more hard because we're attacking each other and we're complaining and we're upset and we're doom scrolling and we're hopeless. We need every single person taking the opposite approach. What can I do with my unique gifts and my talents and my passion that will help us? That is exactly why we need every single person doing something. Something to make your world, your own life, yourself a better person, more evolved, more clear, healing your own self or your community, your own little family or community, or the larger world, any of those things, a better place. Healing any on any level helps. So let's talk some more about this idea that gets in the way of that happening. This idea that we have to be totally unique. I coach on it all the time, and I'm just not having it anymore. Okay, listen to this. If we want to start thinking about this, what if doctors went through medical school and then they just wanted where they were really trying hard to be original? That would not be a good idea, right? Where would medicine be? We don't want a surgeon to prioritize their unique flair or like their signature and their stitch-up. We want a surgeon to do what is most effective. What is proven to work again and again. We want them paying attention to what works, not how they can do it differently. We don't want doctors trying to do things a little differently every time. We want them to help us. We want them to do it well. Yes, innovation is great, but not at the risk of effectiveness. Original versus effective, right? Original comes from the ego. I really need this to be original. I need it to be from my individual identity and stand out in the crowd. I need it to be mine. That comes from ego. It's okay. It's okay. We all have that, right? Most of us do. But just being able to see it, oh my gosh, I'm trying so hard to be original at the risk of my even getting out there and helping people or being effective. Being effective is about helping people. Being effective is about bringing your idea into the world in a way that works. So original comes from ego. Effectiveness is gonna help people, is gonna work. And it's not just true for doctors or engineers, whatever. The same is true for starting a community group. You can do the exact same community group that tons of other people have done before, and it will have an amazing possibility for impacting your world, your people's world, your community, the big world. Writing a book, starting a business, making music, making a movie, starting a YouTube channel, hiking club, women's group, a blog. The fact that you do it is so much more important than it being one of a kind. You doing it creates a wave of impact that helps your life, your well-being, and the lives and the well-being of others. Because we're like that kind of, I don't even know what kind of flock of birds this is, but that kind of flock of birds that you see where one of them turns direction, and then you see it like the it's almost like it looks like virtual reality or something, like the whole flock then turns direction, one direction and another, and they tilt and they all follow each other because each bird in the flock is impacted by the very small minutiae in the turns and curves of the wings of the birds next to them. They're all following each other and going next to each other, right? That's all of us. We're each doing that. Every single one of us that works on ourselves, tries to make ourselves better, more clean, more clear, better communicators, more loving, healing our wounds and getting ourselves to a better place. Or that creates something in the world to make the world a better place or to contribute to our communities. We're each tilting our wing a little bit and being part of that curve, part of that change of direction, that direction away from taking out our frustrations on one another and toward putting our time and our focus, our life's energy into something that will turn our lives and the world into a better place to be. Because we got to counterbalance the negative. We got to turn that tide. And every single one of us who is turning our wings in the direction of doing something good in the world, is gonna counterbalance all of the negative that's out there. So no matter how original it is, it just matters that it exists. Right? Because think of every person out there trolling on the internet because they aren't being influenced into doing something more positive and constructive with their time. Every person who's lonely, wondering if they're weird and dysfunctional because of their struggles, when a group that you could start or something you could write or say or create could help them know they are not alone. Or a design company that gets out there and starts put putting healthy fabrics and sustainable items and locally sourced materials into people's homes, or a theory course that gets people on instruments and creating and expressing themselves and doing something constructive with their hands that builds confidence. Or all of those people out there that are having troubles in relationships and could use communication skills that could save their relationships or stop wars, and you could be the one to teach them those things. Or to embody those things. We teach just by being, we teach just by who we are, right? We influence those around us. Or maybe there's a piece of clothing that you could make, a business that you could start that would inspire other people to start businesses that are local or that are that are inspired by passion or that are conscious, that have integrity. Or you can make an app that could help someone with some part of their idea that they're trying to get off the ground. It doesn't have to be original, you just have to do it. Every single one of us can help to turn that tide. And by the way, your voice, whatever you create, will be totally original because it's coming from you. It will land with someone that no one else's idea can land with. We all resonate with different people. People that like my podcast, I'm sure there are tons of people that can't stand my podcast. Beautiful. Just go listen to somebody else that's teaching these things, you know? Like find the person or the people that resonate with you. You are the person that will resonate with a certain number of people out there. We need you. Either you or what you create. The more of us that are creating things, the more chance we have to land with enough people to turn the tide of this flock towards people taking responsibility for our thoughts, our feelings, our actions, and what we're putting into the world instead of blaming one another. We will all appeal to different people. The more people out there trying to do something with different voices and faces and styles, even if they're all doing the same thing, the better. And there's so much information. A new study just came out, a happiness study that said the number one thing, and I've, hey, by the way, I've presented before that the number one thing in most happiness studies are strong relationships. A new one came out with a different answer, but generally these are always the two. But this one said the number one source of happiness this study found is that people who have a sense of purpose in their life have the happiest lives. Purpose meaning I know I'm making an impact. I know I'm contributing something to the world for my authentic self that's helping. I have a purpose, I have a reason for being here, and it's good, and I believe in it. So for every single one of us, we need we need to be doing that. That's our job. Contributing something to the world from our unique self that is an authentic expression that makes the world a better place. That's what I want for all of us. So be one of those birds that's turning the flock. Get your idea going. If you need help, come into the Bloom Room or the Moxie Mastermind. That's what we do. But no matter what, be one of the birds that gets your idea out there, that turns the tide. It doesn't need to be original. It just needs to get out there. That's what I've got for you today. Happy 150. I'll see you in episode 151. If you like what you're hearing on the podcast, you gotta come and join us in the Bloom Room. This is a year-round membership where we take all of these concepts and we apply them to real life in a community where we have each other's backs and we bring out the best in each other. We're all there to make our ideas real. One idea at a time.