There’s a moment in every trailblazer’s life when they stand before two choices: the well-worn path, paved smooth by the footsteps of everyone who came before, and the wilderness—a chaotic, uninviting tangle of what-ifs and why-nots. The map says go left. Your gut says, “But what’s over there?” We are all born with a machete in our minds, a primal instinct to hack through the weeds of convention. But somewhere along the line, we trade it for a map. We learn that following is safer than failing, that comfort is cozier than combustion. We start looking for the easy route instead of the inevitable path, the one only we can see. But what if I told you that the map is a trap, and your greatest competitive advantage is remembering how to wield that machete?
Everything I need to know about trailblazing, I learned on the fifth grade playground. The bell would shriek, and it was time for the sacred ritual: picking teams for dodgeball. The protocol was simple—you picked the biggest boys, the fastest runners, the kids who looked like they were born with a cannon for an arm. One day, after exhausting the usual suspects, my trusted advisor insisted I pick scrawny Yvonne Lewis. Yvonne? I protested. She was all elbows and knees, more likely to be hit by the ball than to throw it. But desperate to win, I did it. And for the next five weeks, we enjoyed an undefeated winning streak, led by our new MVP, the girl we all came to call “Yvonne the Arm.” In that moment, a light went on. I realized that sometimes you have to step outside of what you’ve always done to find who you’ve always had.
Looking back, my resistance wasn’t about Yvonne; it was about the risk. It was the fear of breaking the “standard protocol” and being laughed off the playground. We are trained to believe that the strongest teams are homogenous, that like attracts like. We want the banana pancake team—safe, predictable, and comforting. But Yvonne taught me that real, disruptive power—the kind that leaves the competition wondering what just happened—comes from building the pulled pork and grilled plantain panini team. It comes from the collision of unexpected perspectives, the delicious discomfort of chocolate and chipotle. That day, I learned that the trailblazer’s gaze isn’t about seeing what’s obviously strong; it’s about having the vision to spot the strength that everyone else is overlooking.
That playground epiphany became a blueprint. To train yourself to think trailblazer thoughts is to retrain your eyes to see the potential in the periphery. It’s a mindset shift that any spoken word artist, CEO, or project manager can master. The code is simple:
- Disrupt Your Own Roster. Actively look for your “Yvonne the Arm”—the unconventional idea, the uncomfortable perspective, the overlooked person on your team. The greatest innovations aren’t found in the center of the huddle; they’re waiting on the sidelines.
- Fail Smart. If I hadn’t picked Yvonne, I would have played it safe and probably lost. The risk wasn’t in picking her; the risk was in not picking her. Trailblazing means you win some, you learn some. So go ahead, stock Armani gauze in your glove box and Chanel splints in your desk. Wear your attempts like proud battle scars.
- Cross-Pollinate Your Perspective. A Harvard Business Review study found that carpenters got their most radical ideas for safety masks not from other carpenters, but from inline skaters. The more distant the field, the more novel the ideas. Your next breakthrough won’t come from talking to people who do what you do; it’ll come from a collision with someone who doesn’t.
This isn’t just theory for a Grammy Nominated Spoken Word Artist Sekou Andrews to preach from a stage. This is a practical tool for you, right now, staring down the Wack-a-Mole of your inbox. It’s for you, trying to make your team more than just a collection of job titles. You don’t need a bigger budget to be a trailblazer; you need a bigger perspective. You can start by asking, “Who is the ‘Yvonne’ in this meeting?” or “What’s the inline skater’s perspective on our sales problem?” This is the kind of spoken word poetry in motion that makes you not just the best or the top, but the most inspiring leader in the room—a true Vanguard Artist of your industry. You become the one who sees the human behind the data, the poem beneath the spreadsheet.
Ultimately, innovators see the world through the machete-shaped lens of a trailblazer, accustomed to standing in the wilderness and being the only one who sees the inevitable path. The rest of the world has a map telling them where to go. You have a vision that tells you where a path needs to be. They are focused on the destination. You are obsessed with the journey. The map will get you there, but the machete will get you to a place no one has ever been before. And that is the difference between asking, “Why didn’t I think of that?” and having the audacity to think like that in the first place.
