Accumulating Existing Credentials vs. Building Your Own Credentials

Some people accumulate existing credentials. 

They come from a fancy place, go to a fancy school, get a job at a fancy company. The impressive things on their resumes are the clubs they got into. The brand associations with Andover, Stanford, McKinsey, and Google. 

The story you tell about them is “where they were.”

Some people make their own credentials

The story about them is “what they did.” 

They are the people who created something unique or accomplished something extreme. These are people who start companies. Who write books or create art. Who make scientific discoveries. Who paddleboard across the Atlantic Ocean.

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Accumulating existing credentials leads you to conform to established thinking. You become the kind of person that gets into the clubs.

Building your own credentials leads you to conform the world to your thinking. You become the kind of person who pushes on the universe, a sculptor of our reality. 

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Accumulating credentials can lead to a successful life. You are safe, you are respected, you have credibility among your peers. 

Building your own credentials can lead to failure. You can fail over and over again. You can feel lost, useless, wrong, tired, and afraid. 

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Accumulating existing credentials implies that you are fungible. You are occupying spaces that could be occupied equally well by someone else, inside clubs that would be equally successful without you.

Building your own credentials is the expression of your individuality. You are creating what only you could have created in this unique way, over thousands of creative decisions and hundreds of hours of work. 

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Some people choose to be the kind who make their own credentials, and some have no other choice. Either way, they tend to end up as the kind of unique generalist who changes the world. 

Thanks for reading,

Eric

If you want me to write a post about what it takes to make your own credentials, holler.