Business communities can sometimes be small and incestuous.

Competitors watch one another closely. Everybody knows everybody and reads everybody’s newsletter and blog. When one industry leader has a profitable idea that catches fire, suddenly, everybody wants to get on the train.

In the fitness industry, right now, it’s all about Crossfit. Crossfit workouts. Crossfit competitions. Crossfit attire. Crossfit-inspired workouts that aren’t called Crossfit but are basically Crossfit. Crossfit is blowing up—everybody wants to get on the train!

In the coaching industry, right now, it’s all about “online group coaching programs.” Virtual group coaching. Mastermind group coaching. Feminine leadership group coaching. Group coaching seems like a great idea—why coach just 1 client when you could get 200 enrollments instead?—so everybody’s dying to roll out the next, best, awesomest group program and fill every spot.

And remember a few years ago, in the TV and movie industry, when everybody was vampire-obsessed? We got Twilight, True Blood, The Vampire Diaries, and a zillion fangy knock offs in rapid succession.

What is the “burning trend” in your industry right now?

What is the “thing” that everybody is doing or launching?

What is the train that everybody is riding?

Think for a sec. I bet it’ll come to you.

It might be a particular website layout that everybody in your industry has been mimicking lately. Or a particular type of product. Or just a general “way” of “doing business” that everybody seems to follow, without question, because… that’s just how things are done.

But what if… that’s NOT how things have to be done?

What if you don’t have to ride that particular train?

I’m here to remind you:

You don’t.

You don’t have to get on the trendy train that everybody else in your industry is clamoring to board. You can go your own direction.

You could, for example…

: Have two (or three) careers, not just one.

I teach entrepreneurs how to get more publicity and sales, and how to create obsessed, loyal fanbases. But when I’m not doing that? I have an entirely separate career as a screenwriter.

I’ve always been a dual-career kind of person. (Or as I often call it, a “Swirler.”) In college I worked at a fashion retail store while interning at a PR company. Later, I worked in advertising while acting and modeling on the side. (Not runway modeling, though: more like magazine ads for uterine fibroid medication. #Glamorous)

Not everybody wants to have multiple job titles—but I’ve always loved it. Maybe you want a dual-lifestyle, too. Don’t be afraid to swirl your passions together to create your own custom-blended career. It’s your life, after all. It can look like whatever you want.

: Go smaller

My friend Alex is a writer with thousands of fans and a client waiting list that’s about ten miles long. For years, people have been telling her, “Why are you still working with clients 1-on-1? You should run a big online writing mentoring program with hundreds of students, an online discussion forum, weekly phone calls, all that kind of stuff! You’d rock it!” and she’s like, “Naw. That doesn’t sound fun to me.” Rather than take her current business model and “go bigger,” she continually simplifies and goes “smaller.”

(Also, on the weekends she runs a brunch pop-up restaurant with her sexy chef boyfriend. She takes orders, mixes drinks, hauls around bins of coffee and chocolate, and picks up biscuit crumbs that toddlers hurl around the room. It’s seriously hard work, but for her, it feels like a fun “vacation” from sitting in front of her computer screen! Further proof that you can absolutely run dual businesses if you want to.)

: Delete everything & start over.

My friend Nicole ran a popular blog called “A Life Less Bullshit” for many years. Then one year, she was realized that she was “over” it. Blogging didn’t excite her anymore. She wanted to start podcasting instead. She removed her blog from the Internet (literally: deleted everything) and started over. She removed her old menu of services, too. Clean slate.

Most business advisers would say, “Noooo! Don’t delete all of your old content! That’s crazy! You’re going to ruin your Google search ranking! You’re going to confuse your current audience! You’re going to have hundreds of links from other sites, pointing to your site, that will no longer work!”

Nicole: {shrugs}

She just doesn’t care. For her, having an online body of work that she feels proud of is much more important that maintaining the highest possible number of inbound links.
(And BTW, her podcast rocks. 300,000 downloads and counting.)

Those are three examples of ways that you might choose to “get off the train” that most of your peers are riding.

What about you?

What makes you feel alive?

What do you actually want to create?

What are the people in your audience asking for? What do they actually need?
What would serve them best?

Are you currently “riding a train” that doesn’t feel good for you at all?

Do you desperately want to get off the train, but you’re scared of the potential consequences (real or imaginary)?

Sit with those questions—and let those questions guide you towards the business offerings (products, services, experiences, structures, models) that make sense for you, rather than automatically following along with what most people are doing.

Remember: just because you boarded a particular business-train in the past doesn’t mean you have to stay onboard forever. This is your story. Your career. Your life.

You can get off that train anytime that you want.