Leaders - Sheep and Lemmings we are not
So we have stepped outside our comfort zones once or twice in our lives. Yet, do you? Always? Are you here to be a sheep? Or lemming? Herd mentality tends to shape us as a society. Old fashioned peer pressures, social pressures, and even shame tends to keep us in line. But are we expected to stay in line? To follow the rules? If the rules are the ones that are intended to keep you in line, to keep you “normal” from standing out in the crowd, then why not become the person that makes the new rules? Should you consider being a peacock or a flamingo standing among a waddle of penguins? If you are here reading this, you are already in the minority and looking to lead. Are you going to do what you hope to do?
We humans take a very egocentric view of ourselves. Most of us believe we are better than the next guy or gal. That we are above the norm, in the “above average” category. But if we are all thinking and believing we are all in the “above average” category, then there is no such category. Think of it this way, if we are all rich then nobody is rich. If everything is a priority, then nothing is a priority. If we are all the smartest in the room…
Yet the glass is half full. We ARE more than pedestrian. We ARE inspired. We are most definitely not vanilla. You know who “we” are. Yet how do you harness that greatness? How do you intend to make an everlasting mark on the scale of history? By not becoming a mainline lemming but instead one of its leaders?* You can choose to lead like a lion and not like a sheep….
Hmm, this is not going where it was intended. It’s turning into nature studies with disputed platitudes
Social pressure. It really does affect us, especially those of us that make the effort to be better every day. We find those mentors, those experts, and we follow (lemming-like) what they did, but we try to be better at it than they did. Runners do it. You pace the person next to you, as she picks up her pace, so do you — pretty soon you are both running at race pace. We are heavily influenced by those nearest us, even though we think we are our own, arguing that we are our own, but find we are most successful when we surround ourselves with experts and keep up with them. Allow the Hawthorne Effect to take place.
Average we are not, so we need to step it up and prove that we are not. Put it into action. Even though your neighbors, coworkers, or friends are doing it, whatever “it” may be, and they are doing it better than you, how do you leverage that to your benefit? How do you use their efforts to up your game? Additionally, if you show pride in your dress, in your fitness, in your work, in your front yard — what do you think that will do to those nearest you?
Be better. Stop following the crowd and step up. Be bold and Goethe smiles.
Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.
*One way is to not use fake media to tell your story. Lemmings are actually quite successful…
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