Achieving extraordinary results requires deliberately breaking industry standards and norms because the majority, by definition, only produces "normal" results.
If you do what everyone else is doing, you will get the same results everyone else is getting. Paul Rulkens, an expert in high performance, argues that "industry standards" are often just traps that keep us average. To get to the top 3%, you have to stop thinking like the 97%.
4 Golden Insights
1. The Questions Stay, Answers Change
Rulkens tells a story about Einstein giving a physics exam. A student notes that the questions are the same as the previous year. Einstein replies, "True, but the answers have changed." In business and life, what got you here will not get you there. Clinging to old "correct" answers is a recipe for failure.
2. The Brain's Lazy Goal
The biological goal of the brain is to stop thinking. It wants to run on auto-pilot to save energy. This leads to "mental myopia" or tunnel vision, where we live 95% of our lives inside a very small, predefined box without realizing it.
3. Norms are just "Normal"
We often look to "Industry Standards" or norms for guidance. But "norm" is just an abbreviation for "normal." If you follow the norms, you are guaranteed to produce average results. High performance is, by definition, abnormal.
4. The Top 3% Break the Rules
Breakthrough innovation doesn't come from optimizing the status quo. It happens when people look at the standard way of doing things and deliberately decide to break it. The people achieving extraordinary results (the top 3%) are almost always the ones ignoring the majority.
"The object of life is not to simply side with the majority, but to avoid joining the ranks of the clinically insane who expect different results while doing the same thing."
— Paul Rulkens💥 Actionable Takeaway
Break One Rule: This week, identify one specific "industry standard" or norm in your professional life that you follow simply because "that's how it's done." Devise a small, calculated way to deliberately break that norm to see if it yields a better result.
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