In the hustle culture of achievement, we want to excel and stand out.
To stand out you have to be different
Adopting this mentality all the time has downsides. It can even limit our overall success.
Sometimes it may serve us to hide in mundanity
An air host/hostess can put serious energy into a spectacular safety drill and humour and drama to get people's attention.
I love it when they do. I’d like to think I would be like that.
It makes little difference to the safety of passengers and is a lot of effort. If they’ve had a long day (like every day…) they can just relax and be mundane. No one watches at all but they can tick the box.
Job done.
I love to make people feel special
If a friend on LinkedIn / Twitter has a post I want to comment on I can wind myself in knots wanting to write the most magical two-line comment.
30 mins later I could still be there seeking a perfect comment…
Just a stock comment like “totally agree” / “You got this” is a mundane way of adding my support. It’s a ‘pass’ and frees me up to support 10 other friends.
Cost of over preparation
I have a good friend with a type-A personality. He does serious preparation for all his meetings. The issue is he has a lot of meetings.
Being analytical, at least half his meetings are not critical.
It’s better to add his wow factor for the meetings that matter. Just showing up to the other meetings is sufficient to get 80% of the benefit.
The added upside is it allows him to rest and do better work.
Stand out vs Chill out
I’ve loved the 80:20 rule for a long time. I’ve never considered it in terms of energy spent when it comes to standing out.
I pride myself on being unusual. My identity is the black sheep who zags when others zig.
Being normal goes against my nature.
Turns out, being super boring can also be just fine.
Whoever you are, remember it’s okay to just chill out and be average now and then.
In some cases, it might even be a lot better.
You got this!
Totally Agree 🤠