One of the hardest things in life is feeling different.
Not broken. Not wrong. Just different.
- Different from your friends.
- Different from your colleagues.
- Different from the people you desperately want to fit in with.
The funny thing is, many of the people who change the world spend years trying to hide exactly the thing that makes them unique.
Let me tell you a story...
As a kid in Salford life was great, but at times it could be tough. Not tough like the girly stories you hear from working class heroes. Proper tough.
And it didn't help when your parents dropped you right in it with your mates.
My Mam was from Vienna in Austria. Bit unusual for a kid from a council estate in Salford. She had a heavy but fabulous accent and did things in an unusual way. That wasn't always good for me because it made me a bit different from the pack.
Every couple of years my Mam's relatives came over and then, a year or two later, we'd go to Austria.
This year my favourite Aunt Trude and her husband Wolfgang were coming to Manchester.
She was gorgeous, lovely and spoiled me rotten.
Most importantly, it meant presents.
I was handed a beautiful brown tissue-paper parcel.
As I unwrapped it, I discovered a pair of leather shorts and a little hat with a huge feather sticking out of it.
Surely this was some sort of joke.
Not for me.
My Mam quickly removed any doubt by making me try them on right there in front of everyone.
Oh God.
They fit.
My mates who knew about this swore they'd never tell anyone.
I was a Salford street urchin trying to make my name.
We were Action Man.
- Tarzan.
- George Best.
- Bobby Charlton.
- Dennis Law.
We were sweet cigarettes, scraped knees and ten-speed racers.
Yet there I stood.
Lederhosen.
A feathered hat.
A twat.
It got worse.
My Mam looked at me and said:
"Now go out and play."
My mates were absolutely merciless.
No amount of preparation can ready a young lad for that level of ridicule.
If it happened today my parents would probably be investigated by social services and I'd still be in therapy.
But the 1960s were a different time.
You developed a fighting spirit and got on with it.
The funny thing is, looking back, the lederhosen were never really the problem.
The problem was that I wanted so desperately to fit in.
As I've grown older, I've met people from every walk of life who carried exactly the same fear.
- The fear of standing out.
- The fear of being judged.
- The fear of being different.
And yet, almost without exception, the people I admire most are different.
- Different thinkers.
- Different dreamers.
- Different creators.
- Different souls.
So if there's a lesson in a little Austrian hat with a ridiculous feather sticking out of it, perhaps it's this:
'The things that make us different are often the things that make us memorable.'
Don't spend your life trying to become somebody else.
The world already has one of them.
Be yourself.
Even if you're wearing lederhosen.