It’s not what you do. It’s the way that you do it. That’s what gets results.
Although we all stand on the shoulders of giants, we can still give things a personal twist, if we have the courage to let our voices be heard.
There have been many novels published, many songs written, and many paintings crafted. The creative fields were crowded long before any of us arrived in them. And yet, distinctly new voices keep emerging. Not because they found a gap in the market nobody else had noticed. But because they brought something genuinely their own to a form that had existed for centuries before them.
Here are three examples worth looking at.
Khaled Hosseini and The Kite Runner #
The manuscript was roundly rejected by more than thirty literary agencies; nearly all with the two-sentence boilerplate “Thank you but this isn’t right for us” variety of response.
The person behind that manuscript was a practising physician, an Afghan refugee who had arrived in the United States at fifteen speaking only a few words of English, who rose at 4am to write before full days of seeing patients. The Kite Runner was the first novel written in English by an Afghan author. There was no established template for it. No guaranteed audience. No reason to believe it would find the readers it needed.
It spent more than two years on the New York Times bestseller list. His three novels have now sold over 40 million copies in more than 70 countries. He became a UN Goodwill Ambassador and founded a foundation providing humanitarian assistance to the people of Afghanistan.
None of that was visible in the thirty rejection letters. It was only visible to Hosseini, who kept going anyway.
Ed Sheeran and the sofas #
Ed Sheeran was brave enough to sleep on friends’ sofas and on the London Underground to busk and gig his way through the years it took to hone his writing and performing skills. Not because he had a guaranteed outcome. Because he had a voice he believed in and the discipline to develop it through accumulated unglamorous effort rather than sudden discovery.
The result: 150 million record sales, over 52 million YouTube subscribers, and a catalogue of songs that have become embedded in the culture of a generation.
Over time, many musicians had written and performed many millions of songs before Ed. He didn’t find a gap. He found his own angle on a form that already existed and had the courage and the patience to develop it in conditions that would have discouraged most people considerably sooner.
The sofas matter, in other words. The underground busking matters. Not as romantic backstory, but as evidence that the development of a genuine voice requires sustained effort in conditions of uncertainty and that the willingness to endure those conditions is itself part of what makes the voice worth hearing.
Cecily Brown and the seven-figure canvas #
Cecily Brown is a contemporary British artist whose works sell for seven-figure sums. Her paintings are figurative but abstracted, dense with art historical reference while giving a strong physical and emotional impact. She did not emerge into a world short of painters. She emerged into a world containing centuries of accumulated visual art history and found, within it, a way of working that was recognisably, unmistakably hers.
Her crowd, her fans, her audience appreciate her style and the techniques she uses. That audience did not exist before her work gave them something to gather around. She created the demand by creating the work, not the other way around.
What all three have in common #
None of these three people succeeded by finding a vacant space. Literature, music, and painting are among the oldest and most populated creative fields in human history. The space was never vacant. The opportunity was never obvious.
What each of them had was a distinctive voice; a particular way of approaching their form that reflected who they were, what they had experienced, and what they genuinely had to say. And the courage to develop and express that voice despite the uncertainty of whether it would find an audience.
This is the principle that scales directly to any form of professional communication, content creation, or business development. The field you are working in is almost certainly crowded. There are other lead generation consultants, other marketing advisers, other coaches, other accountants, other solicitors. Over time, many practitioners have occupied your sector before you.
And yet: the practitioner who brings something of their own; a distinctive philosophy, an authentic voice, a consistent way of working that reflects their actual values, will find their people. Not immediately, and not without the equivalent of thirty rejection letters or a few years on the underground. But they will find them.
The permission this gives #
The liberating implication of all three stories is that originality is not a prerequisite for a distinctive voice. Hosseini did not invent the novel. Sheeran did not invent the acoustic guitar. Brown did not invent oil painting. They brought themselves, their specific experience, perspective, and way of working, to forms that already existed and made something that hadn’t existed before.
You do not need to invent a new category. You need to bring your genuine self to the one you already occupy; clearly, consistently, and with enough courage to keep going through the period before the audience finds you.
We can all make our own mark. We can all build our own market. We can all please the people who engage with us.
The only question is whether we have the courage to begin.
“If you have the courage to begin, you have the courage to succeed.” — Harry Hoover.
Thank you for reading.
Author: Richard Bull-Domican, founder of New Era Financial Introductions, a B2B lead generation consultancy with over twenty years of experience. The perspectives shared here come from two decades in the field; not theory, but practice.
I create small, digestible guides on Gumroad for business owners who hate aggressive tactics and prefer relationship-led approaches. New resources are added regularly. For longer reads on lead generation and the human side of sales, follow me on Medium and join the daily conversation on LinkedIn.
Gumroad: https://richardbulldomican.gumroad.com/
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