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Why Most People Will Remain in Mediocrity

Most people will never become truly successful.

Anthony Moore
Mission.org
Published in
8 min readNov 17, 2017

“It’s lonely at the top. 99% of people are convinced they are incapable of achieving great things, so they aim for mediocre. The level of competition is thus fiercest for ‘realistic’ goals, paradoxically making them the most competitive.”

-Tim Ferriss

Most people will never be truly successful.

The pull towards mediocrity is too strong. As David Schwartz once penned, “All around you is an environment that is trying to pull you down to Second-Class Street.”

Most people will never escape the pull.

Much of the thinking around us is small-minded. Most people are overly concerned with “beating the other guy,” usually through manipulation and politics. As a result, they’re left fighting for scraps with the other 99%.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

A life of your deepest dreams — 100% financial independence, being your own boss, traveling the world with your family, whatever — is available, if you know where to start.

But most people will never turn away from the safety and security of the crowd to realize this.

“All of us, more than we recognize, are products of the thinking around us. And much of this thinking is small.” -David Schwartz

Most People Are Not Willing to Fail

“We can be truly successful only at things we are willing to fail at.” -Mark Manson

Most people hate failure. They run from it.

In their eyes, if they suck at something, it means they suck. Since their self-worth is tied directly to their performance, any failure is proof they aren’t good enough.

But this is exactly why they’ll stay in mediocrity. If they aren’t willing to fail, they aren’t able to learn from their mistakes. If they never learn, they’ll never grow and…

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Anthony Moore
Mission.org

Writer for CNBC, Business Insider, Fast Company, Thought Catalog, Yahoo! Finance, and you.