If you look at a lot of people in business today, they are card-carrying members of the cult of average. Their thoughts are average. Their performance is average. Their energy levels are average. How they spend their days is average. The courses they take or the books they read, even if they do read, or the podcast they listen to, are average. The conversations they have, are average. They’re scheduling, even if their schedule is average. Their tools of the trade, are average. Their workplace or their work environment is average. The people they surround themselves with, they’re average, and yet they wonder why they’re not world-class.
To have the results only 5% of the population has you’ve got to be willing to think and behave like only 5% of the population thinks and behaves. And so what I’m going to challenge you to do is if you really want to play in the rare air of the top 5%, you really have to make a commitment to saying, “I’m going to start thinking like only 5% think, and I’m only going to start behaving like 5% behave.” I also want you to remember though, as you leave the herd, I mean, our neurobiology is to stay in the herd. It’s a key pocket of science I want you to think about. We are neurobiologically hardwired to fit into the herd, and it served us so well hundreds of years ago when we were out on the Savannah and there were all these threats like starvation, the saber tooth tiger. If we left the herd, we would die.
Well, here it is in modern society, and we still have this subconscious neurobiology in the reptilian brain, in the amygdala saying, “If you leave the herd, you’re going to die,” and that’s why so few among us innovate, and that’s why so few among us are willing to think different thoughts, and that’s why we sort of feel a little uncomfortable when we read different books or practice new habits, or try new things. But once you know that, you can say, “You know what? I’m not my ancient neurobiology. I am my neocortex, which is sort of it is the higher seat of reasoning.” And so just remember also that as you leave the herd, as you leave the 95%, the 95% are going to call you strange. They’re going to perhaps laugh at you.
You might be ridiculed. They might become jealous, but jealousy is the price epic producers pay to reach world-class, and you want to be tough enough in your own skin, and you want to be brave enough in your own vision to say, “Well, people might not understand my vision, and they might not understand this new thinking. They might not like the results I’m getting because they’re so great, and those epic results threaten them, but leadership is not about following. It’s about blazing new trails.”