Nobody else is me.

Something I keep coming back to: the idea I'm working on is mine. It comes from what's inside me, from the way I see things. When I really accept that, I land on a conclusion that still sounds a bit strange to me: competition doesn't make much sense. Nobody else can make my idea, for the simple reason that nobody else is me.

And yet the reflex to compare is everywhere. In the animal kingdom, every individual knows its place in the hierarchy. Nobody has to think about it: everyone knows who leads the group and who comes last, and defines themselves by where the others stand. It's the default setting. It's only later in life that I discovered there's another way to find my bearings.

For anyone who creates, the hierarchy is a dangerous place to live. Inside it, I compete with the people above me and the people below me. I'm happy when I'm near the top, unhappy when I'm near the bottom, and I end up measuring my success, my happiness, every single move by the effect it has on others. I look up, I look down, everywhere except the one place I should be looking: inside.

Comparison is the thief of joy.

The purest version of this is a figure I call, in French, the influvoleur: half influencer, half thief. When he sits down to make something, he doesn't ask himself what he has on his heart. He asks what the market expects. He's condescending towards his audience, he thinks he's above it, when in truth he's afraid of it. Afraid of being authentic in front of it, of saying what he really feels or believes, afraid it won't sell. So he tries to guess what people want and hands it to them, like a politician who checks the polls before taking a position. A clever one can make millions this way. But I'm convinced that even when he wins, he loses. He's sold the best part of himself, the part where his real work was supposed to come from.

Territory

The alternative is to work territorially. I took the idea from Steven Pressfield's The War of Art, and it changed the way I look at my work. A cat has its territory. On its own ground it's invincible: it knows every corner, it's at home, and however small it looks, I've seen cats stand without a trace of fear in front of an animal three times their size. Humans have territories too, except ours are psychological. Climbers know what a territory is. So do swimmers, in their pool.

A territory keeps me alive without anything coming from outside. My only part is to bring effort, and love. And it can only be claimed through work: it's mine once I've poured enough sweat into it for it to give some back. A sport, a field of expertise, a craft. What I love about it is that it's fair. One for one. A territory doesn't give, it only returns what I put in, and it never collapses, never loses its value.

What would Schwarzenegger do on a bad day? He wouldn't call his friends. He'd go to the gym, even if it was empty, even if nobody would ever see him train or see the next photo. That's a territorial approach. And I think working that way is the best form of meditation I know: it sends me back to myself, and to nothing else.

None of this means ignoring what others do. I take a bit of this and a bit of that, like everyone, and other people's work inspires me constantly. Pushes me, too. But I've learned to tell the two energies apart. Emulation makes me want to go further on my own ground. Comparison keeps me staring at someone else's.

Let it grow

Being authentic, for me, also means accepting that the work has a direction of its own. When I get stuck on the details of a problem, it's usually because I'm trying to force it somewhere. It's as silly as telling a tree: please, grow this way. I can water it, give it light, but I don't get to choose the shape of every branch.

I felt it while writing a training course. One of the chapters wasn't planned at all. Then I listened to a podcast, read a book, thought "this is brilliant, actually", and added it. It became one of the parts I'm proudest of. That's what happens when I let the work lead: taking the wrong turn at a fork shows me landscapes I would never have seen otherwise.

So authenticity, for me, isn't a posture. It's staying close to what I saw in the first place, not letting somebody else's work decide what mine should be, and being curious enough to follow the idea when it surprises me. It's the only way I know to make something nobody else could have made.