Your story doesn't make you unique
Most of what you think makes you unique does the opposite.
When I shared my personal story, the exact opposite happened.
I stared writing online back in 2020 on WordPress. Everyone’s advice told me to focus on what makes me unique & share my story. For me, I work as an engineer by day and write fiction stories at night. Most engineers don’t know how to write stories and communicate well.
For 3 years, I kept sharing that story. No one cared or listened besides friends.
Then I discovered something crushing:
, , Daliana Liu. All are engineers who are also great at storytelling. I wasn't unique. I was just another engineer-writer in a crowded field, telling the same story as everyone else.My story isn't what made me unique.
I stepped back. Approached this like an engineer.
I built a scoreboard comparing myself to other people in similar spaces. They beat me at every category. I was doing the same things they were doing. Which is fine but I wanted to add to the conversation, not create more noise. The scorecard gave me hard categories to look at instead of just saying "oh I'm a copycat". It grounded my intuition. It didn't replace it.
Then I realized the scoreboard did reveal what made me unique. It revealed exactly how I think differently from others.
My thinking style makes me unique.
Most stories follow similar beats. Similar struggles, similar breakthroughs, similar hero's journey.
Why did I start writing fiction in engineering college while others coded? How did I overcome 95 failed experiments to get a 96th success? Why did I choose to double-down on ghostwriting after getting laid off?
We think our stories make us unique, but we're just fragments of the same pattern playing out across different lives.
The story isn't the thing. The story was never the thing. The thing is the brain you built from making those specific choices in those specific moments which created a specific way of seeing that didn't exist before you existed.
That's not your story. That's your mind.
Pay attention to what you pay attention to.
When someone gives me a problem, I automatically jump to analogies in other fields. Adjacent fields. Even polar opposite fields. That's not a strategy I learned. That's how my brain is wired.
Your brain has similar automatic moves. When you encounter something new, what does your mind do first? What questions does it ask? What connections does it make that seem obvious to you but aren't to others? Those mental reflexes are what make you stand out. Not your skills.
Two painters with the same level of skill will differ because their brains see the world differently. Their brains make connections that others don’t.
This week, catch yourself thinking. Notice what you notice. Your cognitive signature is already there, running in the background.
You just have to pay attention to it.
Because once you see how your mind actually works - the patterns it makes, the connections it draws, the questions it asks - you stop trying to be unique through your story.
You start being unique through your thinking.
And that's something no one else can copy.