By the Ocean
Cloudy 78 Degrees
6:01 a.m.
When I got out of music school, all I really wanted was to be the best player I could be. In the protected confines of our school, those were the players who got noticed…the best ones.
I remember my teacher looking at me one day and saying, “There is plenty of room at the top.” (He was AT the top so his view of things was pretty accurate.)
When I finally stepped into the real world (never graduated, thank God!), it was a bit of a let down. I realized that so many of the people holding the jobs I wanted weren’t actually that good.
Listening to their music made it clear, they didn’t have anything real to say. And what they were “saying” through their music wasn’t very compelling.
When I entered the world of business, I saw the same thing. Average.
This is good news for you. Because most people have been conditioned to accept this type of a life. The life of average.
And what this means is that it doesn’t take much to rise above the crowd and begin your ascent to become the person you are here to be.
If you want to attract great clients, this is the recipe:
Stop waiting for permission. Rewire your mind. Be somebody. Do something. Solve a problem. Step out of the haze. Stand up. Speak out. Create a body of work.
Average is normal. If you want to succeed in business as an expert, don’t be normal.
No one is normal at their core. Normal is a learned behavior that is powered by fear.
Fear kills. It starts on the inside and works its way to the outside.
If you allow it to grow, eventually it will lead you to average. It will lead you to a reality where the most common activity in your day will be to SETTLE for what you’ve got instead of CREATING what you want.
Excellence is a frequency. It is something you choose. It is something you practice. It is something for which you build capacity. It takes MORE energy to be excellent than it does to be average…at least while you’re learning.
But something weird happens if you practice it enough. If you insist on it enough. If you carry yourself in a way that an EXCELLENT person carries themselves long enough.
What happens is that EXCELLENCE will become your new NORMAL.
And it will become effortless.
Experts struggle in business, not because they are aiming too high, but because they are aiming too low. They are aiming high-level skills at low-level opportunities and wondering why the world is not beating a path to their door.
Ask me how I know!
Excellence does not attract average. It cannot help average. Average does not see its value. Average just wants stuff for cheap. This is why excellence must repel average or it will go insane.
Excellence is here to serve other excellence. Focus on it. Embody it. Practice it. Look for it. Insist on it.