How To Succeed By Defying Mediocrity
Have you seen the More Cowbell sketch from Saturday
Night Live? It’s more than just funny. Believe it or not, it’s a powerful
metaphor for a successful work life. And it provides insight into the kind of
people you need on your team, and what makes an effective team.
Everyone has at
least one cowbell — it’s your unique, profitable talent people pay you for or
your company's unique offering. It’s something people have a fever for. When
you discover it and give those people a ton of it, you gain success and
happiness for both yourself and others.
It’s a win-win.
A cowbell is simultaneously something you love doing and
something other people really want as well (although, as we’ll see, you still
will have detractors and critics). A cowbell creates joy for you and other
people. It makes them yell for more. They can't get enough.
Defy Mediocrity
If you’re too vanilla, it’s hard to be successful. You don’t
stand out. And, interestingly, the most popular flavor is vanilla. But that’s
because it’s ice cream, something most people find hard to ignore. Vanilla
wafers, not as popular. Vanilla Ice, not popular at all. We talk about him in
the section of the book about being annoying. But anyway, vanilla is mediocre.
Pink bubblegum ice cream? Now that gets noticed.
Are you in an environment where people praise mediocrity?
Then you might be incentivized to stay mediocre, which will only get you an
average career. Do you want a remarkable career? Then become a remarkable
person. And go weird out some mediocre people.
What you achieve is somewhat determined by your expectations
and the expectations of those around you. For example, some families won’t
allow their kid to live at home after dropping out of college. They expect
their children to get a degree. They expect
excellence. Dropping out of college is unacceptable to them. They paid for
you to go, so you must succeed. No
excuses. Some families are willing to shun their children if they fail. Right
or wrong, that’s pretty motivational for kids. Where excellence is expected,
mediocrity is rare.
Mediocrity goes along with low expectations, a lack of
motivation, a lack of ambition, and zero passion… it’s sleepwalking through
life. Is that what you really want? I mean zombies are cool, but do you really
want to be one?
A small percentage of people leave their jobs and create a
business out of their personality. They don’t have to invent a car or resell
wholesale foods or split atoms. Successful speakers and consultants believe the
power of their words and intellect is worth more than most things. Are these
people confident? Definitely.
Some people succeed just because they want status; they want
to look good and be acknowledged as special. Pathological? Maybe, but
effective.
If you had $10 million, would you live in a private house on
the ocean with huge walls around it? Sure, unless you really want the neighbors
to see when you buy your wife that Lexus with a bow on it. Garrison once heard
a guy say, “I bought my new Mercedes, and it came with tinted windows. What’s
the point of that if no one can see who’s driving it?”
Culture vs. Success
Sometimes your culture fights against your success. Brian
learned when speaking in Norway that many Norwegians are fighting against a
traditional cultural idea called Janteloven
(pronounced yonta-loave-en), based on the laws of Jante, from, believe it or
not, a novel. Why they let a novel hold such sway over them, we don’t know!
These rules are so extreme that we want to share them with
you, because when you read them we think you’ll understand why the Norwegians
need to rebel.
The 10 rules of Jante state:
1.
You're not to think you are anything special.
2.
You're not to think you are as good as we are.
3.
You're not to think you are smarter than we are.
4.
You're not to convince yourself that you are
better than we are.
5.
You're not to think you know more than we do.
6.
You're not to think you are more important than
we are.
7.
You're not to think you are good at anything.
8.
You're not to laugh at us.
9.
You're not to think anyone cares about you.
10.
You're not to think you can teach us anything.
Yikes.
Those rules make us want to punch somebody in the face (a
very American reaction best carried out by anyone with “rock” in their name:
Rocky, or The Rock, or Jim Rockford). Or at least we want to make fun of these
rules.
Americans don’t believe that stuff, which is why the
Scandinavian motivational company Speaker’s Club imports American speakers. We
feel bad that they have to fight that inside themselves, and we wish them all
the best in fighting it.
But even Americans fight something similar, to a degree.
When we succeed, even if we don’t hear explicit jealousy from others, we can
imagine it’s out there. Your inner voice may ask you, “Who are you to deserve
this or that?” And when we do succeed, we can feel a kind of survivor’s guilt:
“Is it bad that I’ve attained this or that when the people from my high school
or college haven’t?”
You Can Be Remarkable
And Humble
Still, we love humility, the kind you find among Tim
Duncan’s San Antonio Spurs teams; they are great, but their greatness comes
from teamwork and good fundamentals. They never get too high or too low.
Brian’s favorite definition of humility is this: a right-sized view of yourself, neither
greater nor less than you actually are. Humility insists that we be honest,
confessing when we’re lucky but taking credit for the action we have taken and
results we’ve achieved.
False humility is believing you are worse than you actually
are. Egotism is believing you are better than you actually are.
If you’re good at something, or even great at it, tell people.
Or show them. Don’t deny it. Don’t hide it. Don’t be embarrassed about it.
If you have gifts, talents, and skills, you have cowbells —
and there are probably people with a fever for them. So go give them more
cowbell.
Get A Free Digital Copy Of The Cowbell Principle
This post is an excerpt adapted by Brian Carter from the
forthcoming book The Cowbell Principle:
Career Advice On How To Get Your Dream Job And Make More Money, by Brian
Carter and Garrison Wynn. Brian and Garrison will be giving away a limited
number of digital copies at launch time. To get notified when they’re
available, sign up at http://thecowbellprinciple.com/getnotified
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