 Maybe you've gotten to the point in your life where you're realizing I suck. I feel like an average person. I feel mediocre. I feel like everything is the status quo and nothing is ever going to change. Well, I've been there like many of us have and I think there's actually a simple process to stop being mediocre in life. What's up you guys? Alex Hein here. Now before we jump in, I've put together a free seven day self growth challenge. It's the first link right below this video and you'll get an email every day with one little thing you can do to improve your life and make it un-mediocre. Make it exceptional. So you can check it out right below this video. So a couple of years back, I had this guy reach out to me. He was someone that had been following my work for a while and he read my second book, Milk the Pigeon. And he said that he had done everything that basically society had expected. He was 35. He was a highly paid consultant making $250,000 a year. He had traveled. He was working long hours but was happy with the money he was making. But in general the overall tone of his email was that he felt like in other people's eyes he had reached the pinnacle of life success, however you define that. But internally he felt spiritually bankrupt and he felt so internally empty and so depressed that he was willing to give up everything, his job, his house, the mortgage, everything to even go take off a year as a sabbatical and travel to figure out what he had gotten wrong. When I responded to him, he said that this one line that I shared was maybe the single most useful thing he had heard in his life. And the line was that basically you've spent your entire life living according to what everyone else wanted for you but you never once decided what you want for yourself. And so yeah, his mom was happy because they're immigrants and she's happier son as a highly paid consultant. And yeah, his dad's happy because he's got a house and that's a marker of success in America. And yeah, you see what I'm saying? None of these things had anything to do with him or his spirit or his consciousness or his psychology what he actually wanted internally. And so as a result, he made everyone else happy and he made himself depressed. So no surprise there. Most often the five people around you are the ones that will dictate your fate. I remember a personal trainer friend of mine said, you know what's really interesting? You can predict what someone's body weight is by looking at their friends. They're almost always within 20 pounds of that person's body weight. So you're rarely are gonna see 160 pound guy hanging out with a bunch of 300 pound guys or a bunch of 180 pound super fit guys or whatever, 120 pound super fit women hanging out with people who don't fit that mold. And there are a lot of reasons for that but there's a whole mindset, habits, consistency. Even your finances are pretty similar to the people around you most often. And it's very interesting that mediocrity is a mindset as well, right? If you're the person who hangs out with just people who go to their nine to five, we complain and we bitch and moan all day, we go to the bar after because I think apparently that's where people unhappy with their 95s go after work. Then we talk some more about our employers and our managers, right? If you realistically are in that scenario, then you're probably with other people that are in that scenario. And so it becomes almost like a glass ceiling. It's like a reinforcement of the norm. And I think that's why also it's so hard for people to get out of the ghetto or out of bad neighborhoods because you don't see anyone who's gotten out of the hood. The only people you see are rappers and I don't know, maybe basketball players. And so that's why music and sports become the thing that kids stereotypically aspire to from a lot of poor neighborhoods because you don't see anyone else get out. Maybe the small percentage who are highly educated, who become lawyers or doctors or dentists or whatever, but you know, you have an idea of your intelligence or your drive, et cetera, right? So very often the people around you seal your fate because they are the limits of where you will be. Mindset, body, your weight, your finances, your thoughts about the ability to grow. And that's what's so scary. Now there's a really simple journal exercise that I've used myriad times throughout my life. And the single purpose of it is to demonstrate to yourself what the average thinking is and then what exceptional thinking is. Basically, if you don't wanna be mediocre or average, think this way. So I wanna walk you through it, just a few different domains of life. So take out a piece of paper and in the left column, basically I want you to map out the major quadrants of life, right? Why don't we just say, for example, we'll say dating, right? We'll say finance, we'll say happiness, we'll say fitness, and then let's just say growth and meaning, right? In the left column, we're gonna write average. In the right column, we're gonna write exceptional. Honestly, the easiest exercise is to write down what does the average person do in dating? What does the average guy do when he sees a pretty girl at the gym? Is it some stupid one liner, right? So average guy, let's write down, stupid one liner. Well, rest assured, that average habit is gonna get an average result. What could you do that's not average? I don't know, maybe try to meet people organically through a hobby, right? Or, instead of the average Joe trying to pick up some girl at the bar, being like, hey baby, can I buy you a drink? Maybe comment on something that's more organic and less direct that in that way. So the average guy's like, let me buy you a drink. Maybe the exceptional guy's like, that's interesting, Negroni. I don't see a lot of people drinking Negroni's here. So just thinking differently, breaking the mold. Now what about finances, right? Let's say someone says, making a million dollars, million equals luck. Sure, that's the average person's mindset, but you're gonna find a lot of people who came from lower socioeconomic classes or middle socioeconomic classes who ended up becoming millionaires. What's the exceptional mindset? Well, maybe with a strategy, I can have it too, right? Because sure as hell, if you believe that being a millionaire is primarily luck, then you'll never try, for sure. What about fitness, right? What if everyone around you is like 50 pounds overweight? Love soda, loves fast food, right? Fitness, you know, I'm just this way, is the average mindset. Exceptional mindset, what could it be? I'm gonna find a role model, right? Someone in my exact scenario. 300 pounds to 180 pounds. A 180 pound woman to a 120 pound woman. So I'll find a role model and I'm gonna do what they did. So just going through all these categories and delineating, you know, on the left side, this is what the average person does in terms of mindset and thoughts and habits. But this is, if I wanna become exceptional in some way, this is what I should do, which is basically not the left column. So that exercise has helped me tons of times in my life to break the mold. So honestly, the fastest way to not become average is just to do the opposite of what you see everyone else doing. Because if you see your friends investing in some hot stock and you know they're all broke, maybe don't invest in that hot stock because that's the broke mindset. If you see all your friends drink an NO explode or some supplements who just started working out in the gym and they don't have their dream body, then maybe that's not the way to be ultimately fit. And if you see people with some certain mindset about life but you sure as hell know you don't want their life, then maybe that's not the mindset of an exceptional person. In my mind, being exceptional or living a conversation worthy life and breaking free from the mold of average is you just can't think or do what the average person does. And if you do that, your dreams will be well assured. So that's my two sets on breaking free from average guys. Check out the link below on the self growth challenge and I'll catch you soon.