Why Should I Be Average?

The question in this title is one that typically elicits a reactionary response of “I don’t want to be average.”  Which rightfully should be the response to a question like that.  However, I’ve been noticing more and more that mediocrity is slowly becoming an acceptable standard and it’s puzzling.  Mediocrity is the state of being mediocre and settling for less than the best, when in fact none of us should be satisfied unless we are the best, and constantly striving to be better. 

Let me share with you an experience I had while attending a job fair.  I was talking to the company recruiter about his company which shall remain nameless.  During the conversation he quotes to me, without my solicitation of the information, that their average sales person makes X dollars a month.  The statement caught me off guard because the recruiter stated that he served in a sales position before joining the recruiting team.  Therefore inherent in his explanation of his company I was expecting a well-crafted pitch to sell me on working for his company.  Instead I was left questioning if that would be a company I’d even be interested in working for, if they are sharing what their average employee makes.  I want to work for a company that expects the best and sets the bar high.  Tell me what your best employee makes so that I know what my potential is for a successful experience.  I’m not interested in your average employee, because if I come to work for you, I’m not there to cash a check and be average, I’m there to be successful and climb the ladder.

I’ve seen this lately in sports as well through different press conferences.  Without trying to turn you off by talking about sports, or elicit any feelings about the Miami Heat, I was struck by something that their coach said in a press conference after losing the NBA championship.  He made a statement saying at least we’ve made it to The Finals four times in the past four years.  Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all about finding a silver lining because I wrote a post about it (When Life Happens), and I acknowledge that there is a significant achievement in making it that far through the season.  However, in the moments after losing a championship, one would expect a substantial amount of disappointment at the outset, followed in the days to come by rallying, trying to find the bright side and moving forward.  Yet this coach who is in a leadership role with the team seemed somewhat content immediately following the loss with having made it that far, stating we’re still ok.  Where is the disappointment of not being the best?  Why did this seem like an acceptance of being just good enough to get that far?

The idea here is why settle for being just good enough?  Should it really be appropriate to be content with at least I tried?  I assert a firm no to those questions.  Settling for average will only get you average results, an average life, with the support of average people.  We should not be content with just making it, or content with what the typical person does, we need to persevere and aim to supersede those thresholds and excel with an overwhelming amount of success.  Will failure happen?  Absolutely.  We all fail in life.  (I’ll address that in a future post)  But we need to get back up after those failures and say “I will succeed”, “I will not settle for having at least tried”, “I will not stop at good enough, I will be better than good enough”.  This is the sphere of a successful driving force that we need to exist in.

Our own contentment with mediocrity will allow us to be passed by others who are working hard for success.  While patting ourselves on the back for a job well done by trying so hard, those who won’t settle for that are working hard to gain an advantage, and they will be the ones setting the higher bar and achieving great things.  We shouldn’t allow that to happen.  We should be the ones setting that bar through blood, sweat and tears, making a commitment to ourselves to expect the best, and then make that expectation a reality.