We face a lot of challenges in our life and there's many things we find easy.
Never assume that these things are stable values.
advice
Stereotype-Fu: Be yourself!
Continuing the series on dealing with stereotypes in your career, one thing people rarely consider is that you can fight the negative stereotypes you face as a fan, techhead, sports nut, etc. by BEING that role to the hilt.
If people hold stereotypes of you, it may be best to not worry about it and go around BEING that fan, b-movie fanatic, comic book reader, etc. to the hilt. In short, be less repressed and more open about your interests and your geekery – without being aggressive.
This doesn't work in every situation – it won't work in the case of hostility, extreme negativity, and conflict. This is more a tactic to help defuse more passive or just plain ignorant stereotyping by BEING the fan you are.
Avoid the Peter Principle
The Peter Principle is a famous idea that, simply, people get promoted until they're in a position they're simply not good at. Too many people are promoted to their level of incompetence.
This is often used in many jokes, but it's actually something I take seriously. I take it seriously as I've seen it in action.
I also take it seriously because it scares me, as it is even more important to career geeks and profans like us. We, yes we, the cool and creative and hip and obsessive people are in even MORE danger of the Peter Principle affecting us. We are, in short, in more danger of being promoted far beyond our level of competence.
The danger is that we often like what we do and can miss when we're bad at it.