Hello, Seiiti Arata
I have an invitation for you.
Decide now to leave the basic,
the average, the regular,
Get out of the culture of mediocrity.
Is mediocrity offensive?
Certain people are offended
by the term 'mediocrity'
They don't understand the meaning
of mediocrity. They may think, even,
that it is an offensive term.
However, a visit to the dictionary
would tell us that mediocrity
means common, vulgar, ordinary, regular,
staying within the average.
To be mediocre is simply to behave in
an average way and to achieve average
results.
To be mediocre is to settle for
what is possible
instead of aiming for the best
in the areas that matter.
"Oh but, you know, with the salary that
they pay me, there's only so much
that you can do."
First, you do your job better, and then you
expect to ask for a raise.
"Oh but, you see, I was short on time,
so I did it more or less."
Well, stop wasting time with bullshit,
and then, carefully, with dedication,
do what matters.
"Oh, but nobody gave me a
step-by-step tutorial, and no one taught
me any different."
Teach yourself. Read books.
Be humble enough to ask for help
when you need it.
Volunteer to get experience.
"Oh, but I'm not going to push myself
in this relationship because my
partner doesn't push himself or herself."
Don't wait for others to better themselves,
be the best version of yourself. Right now.
It is astonishing how many people
would rather stay in the comfort zone
provided by this mediocrity, than to
force themselves to be better.
To stay above average.
Instead of living, they're content with
existing. Well, storms exist,
and clouds exist, and insects exist,
mosquitoes exist, only those
who are the human beings that
choose to escape mediocrity
really live.
Don't confuse mediocrity with humility.
Humility is a virtue. It is being modest.
It is showing respect for
the enormous possibilities and
also the enormous challenges ahead of us.
You can, and you should, start small
and humble, but you can dream big.
You can have big aspirations that
will lift you out of this culture of mediocrity,
because a mediocre person is not humble.
Because they don't dream big.
Don't confuse, also, mediocrity with
gratitude. Gratitude is when you're
satisfied with the knowledge of
who you are, who you already are,
and also you have the acceptance
that there are other possibilities ahead.
You can be grateful for this very moment,
for the present moment,
and you can also strive for even a
better future.
A mediocre person is not grateful,
by the way, they love to complain.
When we talk about mediocrity,
we speak about being a coward,
of avoiding challenges. Of choosing
to stay in the comfort zone.
Mediocrity is the refusal to
seek growth. It is being scared of
everything.
It is being conformist and having
this mindset of saying
"well, you know, there's no point,
because that's the way I am."
To say that is to assume that
people never change.
That they are static, and that there's
no possibility of learning, and
growth and transformation.
The mediocre person will also have
difficulty in recognising and
appreciating the effort and the hard
work that other people are doing, investing
to achieve a certain transformation,
a level of mastery in a certain skill.
If you were to speak with these types of
people, and then you show them
someone who actually has knowledge
and capability in certain areas,
like you bring a great musician,
you bring an exceptional athlete,
somebody with a high performance,
a brilliant scientist, somebody who's
able to speak in different languages
about something interesting,
what is the reaction of the person
who behaves in a mediocre way?
They will say:
"Well, that's called talent, it is luck,
It is something that they're born with,
it's something innate, like their eye colour."
"Well, she plays so well because she's so
creative, and she's an Aquarius. He's so
good at sports, he must have been born
with this fire in his belly, lucky him.
Others have talent with foreign languages."
There is no such things as talent.
There is dedication, there is interest,
there is study, there is effort,
there is a deliberate investment
to improve.
Is mediocrity offensive, in that case?
Well, if you are seeking for excellence,
mediocrity, yeah, it will be
offensive to you. You should actively
refuse to make choices that will keep
you within this culture of mediocrity.
How can we get out of this culture
of mediocrity?
Well, there are four steps to
getting out of the culture
of mediocrity.
There is will, price, reflection,
and action.
The first thing you need to do is to
awaken your will, your intention.
You need to break that spell
that imprisons you in this state
of numbness and low consciousness.
Most people that are in this culture
of mediocrity, they don't even know
that they are mediocre, because they
don't have a vision of what is the impact
that they want to make, what do they
want to achieve, who they want to become.
You need to imagine clearly, you
have to desire earnestly, and you have to
believe sincerely.
When you awaken your will, you must
pay the price. Because to get
out of the culture of mediocrity,
you have to push yourself out of
your comfort zone. Then, you have to
stop being content with the average
results. It is not easy.
You're going to have to put in a lot of effort.
You have to make a promise to yourself.
You have to make a contract to yourself.
A promise that you accept to pay the price
to get out of mediocrity,
because if you don't accept to pay the
price, you will never get out of mediocrity.
Never.
Think about the people you know, and
you know, the average people,
a mediocre person, that is the person
who does not pay the price. They're
content with the average results that they
have, whether it is in their job,
or in their school, they do the bare minimum,
just to not get fired, right?
And they don't put enough effort in their
relationship with their significant other,
at least not as they used to do
in the attraction phase because now they've
settled down. Paying the price is
also understanding that there will be
situations in which some of the people
around you will not be pleased.
What happens when you start to excel at
school or at work?
People will be jealous.
These mediocre people will act like a gang
to put you down, because they don't
want anybody to stand out,
so if you're the type of person who needs
to please everybody, it's going
to be very difficult to get out of this
culture of mediocrity, because they
will not like it. The culture of mediocrity
is when you're trying to fly, but there's
always going to be somebody ready to cut
off your wings. So, now that you have
declared that you have the will,
and that you accept to pay the price
to get out of mediocrity, there
will be a moment of reflection.
Look at yourself, look at
your current situation, are you doing
the bare minimum? Are you
doing your best?
Doing your best is a concept
related to continuous improvement.
This is what we do here, in Arata Academy,
in our courses and our training,
your continued improvement.
Your best today has to be better than it was
yesterday. And the next is the fourth part,
which is action. Be careful here,
because a lot of people say "yeah, I
heard about all this, I know it."
Knowing it is one thing, putting it into action
is a completely different thing.
Knowledge without practice will not give
you any results.
You have to be consistently looking
for something more.
You have to be doing things. Different things,
to get different results. You have to pay
the price. You have to accept this discomfort.
Actually, you have to actively seek for
discomfort. It will be difficult,
and it's not our fault,
because we have been evolved to
try to save energy, to be comfortable,
to be relaxing, so it is easy in this path
that you just want to be browsing photos
of your friends online, in social networks,
and lose focus. If I want to get out of
mediocrity, I have to get out
of the basic level. I need to consciously
make an effort to make better choices.
The challenge is that it is not
easy to make better choices.
See, if our results are a consequence of
our choices, we just need to make
better choices to have better results.
But it is not always that easy.
It is not enough just to say that we want it,
just take a look, for example,
the number of people who say that
they want to live a great love story,
they marry, making promises
that, you know, all types of things,
and they end up with a divorce.
Look at how many people are working
in jobs that they hate,
they really hate, they go
40 hours a week, or even more, for this
self-torture. Look at the people who say
they want to be athletic, that they want
to lose weight, but at the same
time, they have completely bad habits of
eating, no active lifestyle.
Why is it that we say something, but actually
we behave in a completely
opposite way?
Because of this culture of mediocrity.
Because we way we want to improve
something, and on the other side,
we don't want to pay the price, we
don't want to actually do it.
You probably have seen people like that,
they say
"Oh yeah, you know, I know what I want,
I know what has to be done,
but when it comes to actually doing it,
I get a little bit lost, confused and lazy,
I leave it for later, and then I end
up forgetting."
The people that have this type of
situation, these types of problems,
what they need to do, they need to raise
their level of consciousness. Because
choices need to be conscious choices.
You can see more details on this, we
have training for that in arata.se/moneytaboo.
For every type of choice that we make,
there will always be different types
of outcomes. There's going to be an
immediate level of outcome,
and there's going to be also a secondary
level, a third level, and so on.
For example, imagine I'm walking on a street,
and I see a candy shop, and I can continue
walking, but I can also enter and get some
sweets. The immediate result is that I'll
have some pleasure eating those sweets.
It's gonna be a tasty experience, but
soon afterwards, I may feel guilty
if I didn't want that. And if I create
this habit and exaggerate this habit
to be always eating a lot of those sweets,
I may gain weight, I may become obese,
I may have all types of problems.
So, imagine another situation, I ignore
the sweet shop.
Instead of that, I go to the gym.
What is going to be the immediate result?
I'll be in a lot of pain, I'm going to be
tired, I'm going to be sweaty,
but if I make this into a repeated habit,
I will have a healthier body, I'm
probably going to have also a healthier mind,
a more balanced life.
The immediate level is that which
is the most obvious to us.
And you need to have clarity to see and
recognise and appreciate results from
all other levels and give the right
attribution to all these levels and all these
consequences, and then, you can make
a conscious choice.
This is not easy. But it can be trained.
As always, we have the best for last.
The final tip I share with you is in the
form of a story. People like stories, and
this story has to do with our training, that
you can see in arata.se/moneytaboo.
So here's the story:
Once upon a time, there was a woman.
This young woman going to work, and she would
walk every day in front of this house,
where there was this gentleman sitting
on the porch, with a dog lying on his left side.
The dog was always with this sad face,
and moaning
dog whimpering sound
and the woman was walking in front
of the house every day,
same scene,
man on the porch, dog by his left side,
whimpering.
One day, she could not take it
any longer, she decided to intervene
in a gentle way, and she asked:
"Excuse me sir, but don't you realise that
your dog is suffering? Why does he
moan every day?"
Then the old man replied,
"You see, the floorboards on my left side
are kind of loose, the tips of the nails
poke out of the boards , and the dog
just comes and lays on them, and,
you know, starts to whimper."
Then, the woman asked:
"Well, if that's the case, why doesn't
the dog lie on your right side, sir?"
And the man revealed the reason:
"It is because it's not hurting enough
for him to move."
Don't let mediocrity lead to
disaster. You know exactly what is not
right in your life right now.
The problem is that the pain is not
yet strong enough for you
to do something about it.
Don't wait until life becomes unbearable
before you take action.
Make a change now.
We have an exclusive series of videos
on this topic and you can visit
arata.se/moneytaboo.