The Island of Misfit Toys was part of the story of the 1960s perennial Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Christmas special. During his adventure, Rudolph is brought to this island, where unwanted toys are brought to be together.
It’s a powerful metaphor about the community misfits can find with one another. I remember a good friend of mine using it to describe the community that formed around my rave promotion, Hullabaloo, back in the day. We’re all weird, but we can be weird together.
These days I’ve been playing around with a different kind of weird – one I call the Accomplished Misfit.
“Accomplished” is a key differentiator. They’ve done something, multiple times. Luck can no longer be used to explain it away.
For years I was convinced I was lucky. That was the only explanation for the success I saw, is what I thought in my head. It’s because I was comparing my story with how things were supposed to go, and didn’t have another explanation. Now I know different. My unconventional story IS the explanation. For over six years I’ve been blogging my own understanding as I lean into my self-mastery of just what I did and how I did it.
However, getting to where I’ve gotten has left me with a specific kind of loneliness. I don’t have traditional peers, because my story is too far off the beaten track.
But then I wondered… what if… what if my peers are not those that did what I did (or do what I do), but those that share an off the beaten path success story? Ones who created success through methods that would make experts cringe? Ones that can relate to a specific kind of lonely that taking this path creates?
What if WE were to create a new island of misfit toys… Accomplished Misfits… and found community through that?
Imagine what will become possible when we come together and proudly own what makes us weird, acknowledge the fucking awesome things we’ve done, find camaraderie with each other, and cheer each other on as we take on our next crazy thing that makes other people say “You did WHAT?!”
And so, that went from idea to reality, and I’m co-hosting (with my fellow Accomplished Misfit, Shermain Melton) the first Accomplished Misfit Gathering.
Weird, Successful, Lonely, with Unfinished Business.
An Accomplished Misfits Gathering.
Free on Zoom. July 21st at 1 PM Eastern / 10 AM Pacific.
Click here to RSVP and receive the Zoom details (This is open to EVERYONE! All Accomplished Misfits are welcome!).
Who do you know is an accomplished misfit? Send this to them, they will thank you.
This Zoom is just the beginning and a taste of what Shermain and I have been cooking up. We plan to bring Accomplished Misfits together in person in Toronto this October 2, 3, 4. We’re calling it NEW GAME+, which is inspired from how in video games once you complete the game and beat the final boss, you can play it again taking all your experience and upgrades with you. This will be a once-in-a-lifetime event for a limited number of Accomplished Misfits as we explore connection, courage, and take on our next impossible mission.
I’ll share more details on the Zoom about this and attendees will be the first to know.
Your Accomplished Misfit hosts:
Shermain Melton
“I’m black, gay, and Christian, and for a long time I thought God had played a trick on me. I rose out of a childhood of poverty, gunshots, and drug dealers to become a self-made, debt-free millionaire. I have survivor’s guilt because not all my friends made it. At age 20, I became GM of a Pizza Hut that was seen as undesired and underperforming and with the help of my team of 40 we turned it around. The lessons I learned then serve me today as a leader. I walked away from a lucrative tech career at AMEX where I designed and optimized networks to keep operating even if they were broken because I wanted to make an even bigger impact in the world – and I’m taking on a mission of solving loneliness to do so.”
Chris Frolic
“For most of my life I carried a secret shame that I had fooled the world, because how was it possible that a high school dropout would become one of the biggest selling DJs of the 90s, a historic pioneer of the original rave scene, who then became a comedy stage hypnotist that toured the country and appeared on TV, and then with no training or education co-founded a pioneering webinar business that hosted 60 million people and then was sold to a private equity fund? I then took on an impossible goal of winning the Nobel Peace Prize for solving climate change, because I wanted to see what would happen if I dared spoke those words which brought me to COP28 in Dubai and later teach my impossible goal framework to cancer doctors and researchers. Today I remind myself and others what is possible if we remember who we truly are.”
