We both made the best dressed list, but I did it first.
I attended the Bibliobash recently — a philanthropic ball supporting Toronto’s public library system.
It’s a black-tie affair for a great cause.
And me being me (one that is particularly rakish on a good day), when it came time to pick out an outfit, I asked myself: how far down the bell curve am I willing to go?
You know the bell curve. Big bulge in the middle — safe, predictable, and a little boring. And then tippy tips at the end — strange, extreme, and a little exhausting.
But the interesting territory is somewhere in between. It’s familiar, but with a twist.
So I wore my tuxedo with opal cufflinks and opal studs. But over the top of it … I strutted a magnificent silk robe.
(Inspired, for the record, by Hugh Laurie lurking villainously on a Spanish balcony in The Night Manager. Obviously.)
Now, this isn’t the first time I’ve worn such a masterpiece. I also wore it when I won the Thinkers50 “Marshall Goldsmith Award for Coaching & Mentoring.”
This time, I got compliments and the same eye-rolls from my wife that she gave me the first time I wore it (she can’t stand this piece of my wardrobe) … but, unexpectedly, I made Toronto Life’s best-dressed list.
What surprised me about this was that I didn’t even know that “Best Dressed” had been on my bucket list. Until I checked it off.
A lot of my readers have said some version of the same thing: I don’t know what I want, but I know I want something different.
And then we wait until we have it figured out or for the vision to arrive fully formed before taking a step towards it.
But that’s not how it works. Or at least, it’s not the only way it works.
Sometimes you don’t discover what you want by thinking harder.
But doing something slightly different and paying attention to what lights you up … that sparks something.
The bucket list item reveals itself after you tick it off.
The robe was my deliberate nudge away from the middle of the bell curve. And it turned out to tell me something about myself I didn’t quite know before.
So here’s my invitation to you …
If you nudged yourself a little off-centre and added a small twist to the predictable version, what might that look like?
Then do that thing and see what it tells you.
You might end up on a best-dressed list, or you might just feel a little more like yourself.
Either outcome is worth the robe.
