Keep building the thing.
There are a lot of people trying to become unique.
It doesn’t work that way.
The people who eventually become known for a distinctive way of seeing the world usually weren’t trying to become categories.
They were trying to answer a question.
Solve a problem.
Pursue an obsession.
Build a thing.
The category came later.
Nobody wakes up and says:
I’m a Thought Leader.
Or:
I’d like to become a Category of One.
That’s observer language.
Not builder language.
Oprah Winfrey wasn’t trying to build a category.
Neither was Seth Godin.
They were following something.
The category emerged around the pursuit.
When people realize they’ve outgrown their category, they often begin searching for a better category.
But maybe that’s still the wrong question.
Instead of asking:
What category should I be in?
Maybe ask:
What won’t leave me alone?
What idea?
What obsession?
What tension?
What problem?
What question?
That’s much closer to where categories actually come from.
Some people spend years looking for the right category.
Others get so busy building that they forget to look.
The title helped them get started.
The work kept going.
Eventually the work and the title stopped being the same size.
The goal was never to become a Category of One. The goal was to build something worth your continued devotion.
To follow a question long enough.
To pursue an idea far enough.
To stay with the work after the title stopped explaining it.
Categories are useful.
But every once in a while, if you’re lucky, the thing you’re building grows larger than the category that first contained it.
When that happens, the challenge isn’t finding a clever new label.
The challenge is recognizing what you’ve actually become before the rest of the world does.
And then continuing to build it.
I’m collecting stories, observations, and examples for Too Big to Define.
If you’ve found yourself asking, What is this becoming? I’d love to hear what you’re building.