It’s easy to think the best way to succeed or to live your life is to be like someone else. You see someone you admire or think they are powerful or cool, and you think, If I could just be like them, that would be awesome! I don’t blame anyone for thinking that. The world seems to reward sameness in all kinds of ways—dress codes, college applications, job interviews, social media. There’s often a quiet (or sometimes loud) pressure to blend in, to match a template, to copy what worked for someone else. And at first, it can seem like that’s the smart move.

But copying only gets you so far. You can imitate someone’s path, but you can’t imitate their reasons. You can’t borrow their instincts or experiences or timing. What made their life work isn’t just what they did—it’s who they were. And if you try to copy someone too closely, the thing you’re copying starts to feel fake. It lacks the energy that came from it being theirs in the first place. You end up performing a version of someone else’s life, while your own waits backstage. You should not live an un-authentic life.

Mark Zuckerberg the founder of Facebook/Meta and one of the richest men in the world as I write this once told a story about his daughter. After attending one of Taylor Swift’s concerts, August told her father, “You know Dad, I kind of want to be like Taylor Swift when I grow up.” Zuckerberg responded, “But you can’t. That’s not available to you.” Upon reflection, August concluded, “Alright, when I grow up I want people to want to be like August Chan Zuckerberg.”

What I wish I could explain to every kid—and to be honest, to a lot of grown-ups—is that the people we admire most weren’t trying to be someone else. They were trying to be more themselves. Sometimes that made them odd. Sometimes it made them unpopular. But over time, being yourself is the only strategy that doesn’t collapse under pressure. You don’t have to remember an act. You just live.

Cookie and I tell you this all the time, and we mean it every time: We love you just the way God made you. And we say that not as a comfort line, but as a kind of deep truth we hope you’ll carry with you. God made you with care and intention. That means you’re not some rough draft waiting to be cleaned up. You don’t need to become someone else to be worth loving or worth admiring. You are already a story worth reading, a life worth watching, a soul worth celebrating—just as you are. And your story is still being written. 

There’s risk in being yourself. You might be misunderstood. You might be laughed at. But there’s a bigger risk in hiding: you might go your whole life without ever meeting the person you were meant to be. And I’ll tell you this from experience: when you’re old, you don’t regret the moments when you stood out. You regret the times you held back. You regret pretending to be smaller than you were.

The truth is, the world needs people who are fully themselves. That’s where the good ideas come from. That’s where the breakthroughs and the kindness and the laughter come from. Not from people following the script, but from the ones brave enough to write their own.

So if you’re ever in a moment where you feel the pull to be like someone else—just pause. Ask yourself what’s really drawing you. Is it their life you want, or is it your own voice you’re trying to find? Most of the time, it’s the latter. And the best way to find it is to stop echoing and start speaking. Start building. Start being the version of yourself that only you can be.

Because that version—the one God made, the one Cookie and I love without conditions—that’s the one the world needs most.

Not I don’t want you to think that there isn’t a lot to learn from other people and how they do things.  This is why I like to read biographies and autobiographies.  There’s a lot to learn about the habits and routines and processes followed by the world’s most successful people.  Michael Jordan, the best basketball player in history and an incredibly accomplished businessman, said that the habits he learned growing up relative to how to practice and how to be a great teammate and how to be an incredible leader were all learned from a couple of his high school and college coaches.  And once he got into business he realized that those same habits that made him a great player and leader applied in the exact same way in business.  And the more I read about other people in their biographies the more I take away some of these lessons and apply them to my life.  There’s a lot to learn out there.