The art of being yourself | Caroline McHugh | TEDxMiltonKeynesWomen

Your job is not to copy remarkable individuals. Your task is to be as unlike them as you can possibly be. You have to be as good at being you as they are at being them.

So, ask yourself, 'Who do you think you are?'  Just be yourself, because when you're yourself, you're fabulous.

Where you were born, when you were born, and to whom you were born all have a particular influence or impact on how you become who you are. 

Figure out what you expect from life and what life expects from you. A good starting point where you were fantastic at being yourself is when you were a kid under five.

• As a kid, you don't know how to disguise your differentness.
• As you grow older, society's archetype emerges, and you become more self-conscious and less good at being yourself.
• When you're wrinkly, you are also good at being yourself. You become less compromising and more honest.

We are authentic when we're very young and when we're old, but in the middle, we develop the "I complex." The hourglass model helps you figure out which "I" you mean when you say "I". 

• If you have a superiority complex, you think you're the most important person in the room.
• If you have an inferiority complex, you suffer from an over-modest self-regard.
• Both are signs of a fragile ego.

A third way is a made-up word called 'interiority. ' where you know that nobody can be like you. Other people have their things, but you have yours. Theirs can never compare to yours.

When you figure out how to be yourself, it's incredibly liberating. You're not just somebody's boss or somebody's mom. You're yourself.

While you can never be perception-less, you can be perception-free. Tune into what you would like everybody else to think of you. It's not about being fake but about potential.

You're already different. Your job is to figure out how and then become more of that.

At certain times, your life will lend itself to change. It will make change quicker and deeper. These are intervals of possibility.

You meet a stranger at a bar, or your boss offers you a new job. You know if you make the change the speed of your life will change. Some of these intervals of possibility are catastrophic. Someone you love will get sick, or you'll get sick, or you'll get fired, or a tsunami happens.

On the one extreme of your ego, you feel on top of the world. On the other extreme, you have days where nothing works. Your legs don't work, your mouth doesn't work.

Your entire life is about building a stable relationship with your ego. Your challenge is to take the ego from its dominant position and put it in service to yourself. That's when it becomes useful. In order to do that, you have to find the point in the middle of those two extremes. The confidence that comes from there is what you're after.

You may not be as big a message as Gandhi's but your life has to be your message.

So, when you think about your identity and what it means to be alive, you're not your thoughts. You can't be your feelings. You're not what you have, nor what you do. You're not even who you love or who loves you. There's something underneath that. If you can tap into that, you'll never feel superfluous again.