And mediocrity as a choice. People will sigh and tell you “well, people just don’t change.” Well, they are wrong–and that entire notion is a design for (1) failure, (2) mediocrity, (3) settling and (4) otherwise failing to grow.
All of my life I have seen people change. And change in extraordinary ways. They choose it.
The catch: you must do it yourself. The wonder: you are always doing it anyway. So make it work for you.
Stephanie West Allen floored me in a conference call two months ago when she reminded the group and me that science has us changing our brains on an ongoing basis, whether we like it, or are aware of it, or not. She has two sites: Brains on Purpose and Idealawg. These are both must reads, even for people with limited time.
Any Tom Edisons or Ben Franklins in the house? Another reason to read West Allen is that she is one of the few lawyer-consultants who had steadfastly refused to align herself with the “work-life balance” movement*, now in its death throes amongst those with a modicum of self-respect and ambition. In that regard, see West Allen’s enduring article, “Hot Worms and Workaholics: Let the Workers Be!“, and this later piece “Hot, Cool and Cold Worms: A Contrarian Look at Work-life Balance and So-called ‘Workaholism’“.
Even ill-fated Oedipus knew that there are a lot of things you can change. Above: “Oedipus At Colonus”, 1798, Fulchran-Jean Harriet (1776-1805), Cleveland Museum of Art.