The examination of statistical data coupled with experiential observation has brought me to the conclusion that there is a huge gap between the top five percent of the performer and the rest of the world. Human performance can be broken down into groups based on certain statistical data. To make this easy to understand as well as make the playing field level, we will say that a group of 100 men from similar backgrounds and equal education start their professional careers at age 25. Where do you think they will end up by age 65?
Let’s look at what the statistics suggest concerning the realities of these men by age 65.
So, only five percent of the group will earn a passing grade in the area of finance over the course of their lives.
Side note: The statistics should be given a margin of error of two percent depending on the study used.
What is the common denominator with those who make up the five percent of exceptionally successful people worldwide? Simply put, they are not conformists. While non-conformists are frowned upon in most sectors of society, they are generally the ones who excel . The non-conformist does not look around them to observe what others think so they can follow suit.
We live in a world of conformity. We are trained and conditioned to conform, even leading to us insisting on others to conform. The predominance of the public education experience is focused on developing conformity in thinking and behavior. People who land in the top five percent have learned to think for themselves — to entertain thoughts and ideas that are outside of the box of commonality.
The top five percent are those who have been constantly reminded that they are not being realistic.
“Being realistic is the quickest path to mediocrity.” ~ Will Smith
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I often hear people complaining about the level of competition in a particular market. Most people will not enter the world of entrepreneurship because they fear competition.
Do you know why competition exists at such high levels in the world? Because everyone is thinking and doing what someone else is thinking and doing. Very few people are exploring the unique potential embedded in their unique design.
Life is a complete thing — having a beginning, a middle, and an end. The end will be determined by what you do in the middle. Most people see their lives' end or later years as a point of decline and something to fear and dread. This fear and dread are usually because they did not properly plan for the end. When you see the value in your life and pour it into your work, there is no limit to what you can accomplish, and the later years will prove to be the best years of your life.
We live in a world where people are conditioned to believe that there is more of a tremendous honor in one type of job than there is in another. The value and honor are not in the job or the work you do but in how you view and approach it. I have seen attorneys and doctors struggle financially and never accomplish anything significant. I have also seen more than one person start out on fries at McDonald’s and eventually own a McDonald’s franchise. What is the difference? One person had a mindset of excellence and excelling, and the other simply sought to exist in a world that someone else established with no endgame in mind.
I encourage you to start to think outside of the box. Stop allowing yourself to be confined to the reality and ideas of others. When you study the path of the most successful people in history, they all decided to do what others thought was crazy or impossible. We fly around the world now because the Wright brothers decided to engage the impossible. We talk to people around the world in real-time because someone decided it was possible despite being told they were not being realistic.
We now understand Einstein’s theory of relativity, but that is only because he refused to accept that he was crazy and thought for himself. As long as you continue to operate within the parameters of someone else’s reality, you will never fully experience life at the level of your design.
Instead of following someone else’s chain of thought, why not determine that you will get out in front of the trend? Instead of following something someone else created, you will devise the solution to an existing problem — allowing you to write your own ticket.
How much do you know about your industry? Could you be considered an expert in your industry? In as little as three to four years, you can become an expert in your field, and it is the experts who are paid handsomely. Learn to see beyond the job to see how your unique imprint can reshape the way the world sees what you do. The value is not in the job, it is in what you invest in the job. You are the X-factor.
One of the greatest failures of mankind is that we refuse to prospect the unlimited potential of our minds. ~ Rick Wallace, Ph.D., Psy.D.