The Thing That Makes You Weird Might Make You Great

If you're a music fan and you're not familiar with Angine de Poitrine then you may have been living under a rock for the last six months.

In February 2026, the independent listener-supported radio station KEXP in Seattle released a video of this rock duo from Quebec that went absolutely viral and made them a talking point overnight. The band plays an odd mix of music that has been described as prog rock, microtonal and experimental rock. To make it easy for you to understand, it's simply a guitarist and a drummer. No words.

However, the band's visuals make them stand out. The members of the band wear these unique black and white polka dot outfits with some sort of helmet contraptions on both of them. You can't see their faces, and you don't even know who they are. They simply come on stage, play whatever the hell it is that they play, and that's it.

So my TikTok and YouTube feeds have been full of these guys since they were first discovered, and each time I go straight to the comments, and they never disappoint. The comments are usually mixed with an equal blend of "These guys suck" and/or "These guys are brilliant!"

Which leads me to the point that sometimes brilliance is disguised as genuisness.

Sometimes the thing that makes something brilliant is the exact same thing that makes other people think it's ridiculous. It doesn't fit neatly into a category. It doesn't look like everything else. It doesn't sound familiar. It makes you uncomfortable because your brain is trying to compare it to something you already understand, and sometimes there simply isn't a good comparison.

The same thing happens in your career. The person who thinks differently, communicates differently, solves problems differently, or takes a path nobody else understands can look completely fucking crazy right up until the moment it works. Then suddenly everyone starts calling them innovative. Before the outcome, they're weird. After the outcome, they're brilliant.

We love brilliance once it has been validated. We love the entrepreneur after the company takes off. We love the artist after the song goes viral. We love the leader after the strategy works. What we're not nearly as good at is recognizing something interesting while it's still sitting in that uncomfortable phase where nobody knows what the hell to make of it.

Before the outcome, they're weird. After the outcome, they're brilliant.

That's why I think there's danger in trying too hard to look normal. If Angine de Poitrine walked onto the stage wearing jeans and black T-shirts, played more conventional music, and tried to make themselves easier for everyone to understand, maybe nobody would give a shit. The weirdness is part of the product. It's the reason you stop scrolling. It's the reason you remember them. It's the reason people are arguing about them in the comments six months later.

You probably have some version of that in you too. Maybe it's an idea you've been hesitant to share because it sounds different. Maybe it's the way you lead, the way you sell, the way you present, or the way you create something. Sometimes we spend so much energy trying to make ourselves look like everyone else that we accidentally remove the exact thing that could have made us memorable.

So maybe the goal isn't to make sure everyone understands you. Maybe the goal is to be good enough, different enough, and confident enough that people have to stop and form an opinion. Some will think you suck. Some will think you're brilliant. That's probably better than nobody thinking about you at all.