Every year, I’m glued to my chair.

But every year, even though my bracket is busted, I still watch.

I still watch.

Why?

The story that gets told. No, not the one where the number 1 seed team plows through to the Final Four. That story’s been told already.

I love to see which group of guys will pull together and defy the odds that the professional statisticians and sports commentators give them.

The Long Shot

Why is that story, regardless of team or placement, so intriguing? What does this tournament provide that many others don’t?

It provides an underdog, an outsider, a challenger, a long shot.

That’s what everyone wants to see.

It’s easy to be a supporter of the big guy. It’s expected that there will be a dominant force that will take care of business. However, the expected gets boring.

The Proven Method

How does this relate to you and me?

Well, when working with brands, it’s easy to implement the expected. It’s easy to fall into line and do what everyone else is doing.

“It’s a proven method,” right?

It has to work.

I guess you can try and let me know how that goes. The “proven method” has worked, but it worked for someone else whose method was for that specific company. Their problems might not be your company’s problem. Their market might not be your market’s problem.

What needs to be done is to think outside the box.

What about you makes you someone to cheer on? What makes your story something people would want to rally behind?

There’s always something.

It’s hard to self-evaluate, so get some outside perspective. Regardless, you need to tell your story with the perspective of being someone to cheer on.

Challenge the Norm

There are lots of companies who are trying to do just that.

You see it in companies that are trying to break the norm.

Liquid Death is an easy example. The packaged water market was saturated with plastic bottles. It was the “proven method.” Their approach took them in the opposite direction. They saw the waste caused by plastics and decided to change the packaging.

People said it wouldn’t work because people wouldn’t know what it was. The concept was too crazy. People don’t like change. There’s already an established way of doing things.

Just like Liquid Death, there are others whose approach differed from the established market. IKEA and their consumer-built furniture. Crocs and their simple, ugly, lightweight shoes. RXBAR and their “ingredients as packaging” approach to food.

Be the Bracket Buster

Just like teams that aren’t widely known seek to prove themselves in March by finding success outside of “proven methods” of winning, we as individuals, and companies alike, should also seek to find the uncommon things that help us rise above.

There is something to the underdog story that has a pull on us as humans.

We need it.

We need it because it reflects ourselves. It provides hope that we too can exceed the odds placed on us, that we can be more than what others deem possible.

And we can.

It’s hard to blaze your own path. It’s hard to form new ideas. We may not have as much time or resources that the “Big Dogs” have.

Feeling like you're “losing big” or “down a few possessions” is where the breaking point is. You have to decide then and there: Am I going to find a way to succeed, or just hope I get a better shot at a win next year?

No one said this process would be easy.

It is, however, worth every bit of effort to bet on yourself and your ideas.