How society encourages mediocrity

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Sniffing Out the Bullshit. And this week is a bit of a funny episode because I am not just talking about some bullshit that is out there that we need to sniff at, but it's actually about bullshit that's been instilled in us for so many years, that, you know, since we were kids, ever since I've known, I think the world encourages mediocrity. And this is what we're going to dive into today, which sounds utterly ridiculous, but the more I hear sort of things these days, the more I'm thinking, okay, we're encouraging people to be lazy and mediocre, and it's just not okay. So how far does this go back? I keep thinking back to even when I was a kid, and I think that when you're a kid and you take part in a competition, and obviously everyone wants to encourage you, and you're a child, and you haven't quite learned all these emotions and how to respond to failure and all this sort of thing. So every child that goes into a competition gets a certificate for participating. And there's all these encouragement saying, it's winning, doesn't matter, it's the taking part that counts and all this sort of stuff. But that's not true. Just because you take part in things in life doesn't mean that you're going to be successful. And when you think about it, if this is the attitude that kids understand as their first experience when it comes to competing or any sort of hardship, and they're just like, it doesn't really matter. I've taken part, I've done my best, but did they really do their best? I mean, if they did do their best and they didn't win, fine, but then they need to understand what that means. And I think that, yes, okay, an egg and spoon race at the age of four is probably not going to be the best place to start this. But I do think that embracing failure and learning to learn from your mistakes from a very early age is something that people should be doing. And we consistently reward participation all the time. Now, I still teach in schools, and it's been a very difficult thing for me to do when it comes to participation and winning. It's really hard. Like when kids lose and they're crying, it's devastating.

You never want to see a kid cry. But what I always try to do is sit down with them and try to get them to understand why they lost, and then go through what they've learned from that. For example, I teach chess at schools. I used to be a professional chess player, and I still coach. And I've written a book for kids. It's printed in 20 different languages. It's doing really well. It sold, I think, over 55,000 copies worldwide, which is amazing. I'm super proud of it. So kids do love my book. So there's something about the way I write for kids that does encourage them. So I like to think that I can get through to kids when I'm teaching them. And I've never done this by just saying, it's okay, it's taking part of the counts, it's fine. I have always encouraged learning from the failures. So every time I lose a game, I sit down with them and say, well, okay, why do you think you lost? And they'll be like, I don't know. Obviously there's a few tears quite a lot of the time, and you just have to be patient. And I sit down with them and I ask, and then eventually they go, oh, this happened, this happened, and I'm like, okay, well, what will we do next time? And they learn from the mistakes because that's what I think they need to do. If you just thought that it's okay and just ignored it and gave them a certificate for participation, I don't think they'd actually work as hard to do as well next time. I think that every time a child cries and you give them a prize for it, you're essentially encouraging the failure. And they don't even bother trying later because they know they're going to get a prize for it later. And so I just think that's wrong. And it's the same thing from school all the time. We are consistently focusing on grades. All through our life, have we not worked and done exams and then got grades for them? Now, this is one way of measuring success, of course, but all exams do and grades do is encourage us to revise and cram for an exam and try to get a grade and then not remember anything that happened afterwards. So, I mean, I got great grades at school. I always did really well in exams, but that's only because I was cramming the night before, tried to photographically memorize everything before the exam, did really well in the exam. And then after that, I don't remember half the stuff I did at school. What is the point of that? Now, yes, okay, I look smart on paper.

Oh, straight A's, congratulations, you must be smart. No, I'm good at remembering things. I'm good at memorizing things. And that does not set me up for future. Why aren't we encouraging the journey and the learning process and the skills that's involved for long-term learning and understanding of the subject rather than a quick cram and a grade that you get the end of it? And why are the people who got A's necessarily better than the people who got B's and C's and D's? That may not be the case. Those who got C's and D's actually may just not have done really well in that exact particular exam because of the way that it was done and how they are and how their brain thinks and how they sit down for the exams. I think that's not really a good measurement of success. And I think it's really wrong. And we sit there and we encourage and we focus grades. And whenever students are taught to focus purely on getting good grades, it just leads to a lack of intellectual curiosity, for example. We're just trying to think of the minimum requirement that we need to do to pass or get that A, and that's it. We don't think about exploring anything with our brain and being creative. And so I think that really inhabits our learning, to be honest. And consistently, we're discouraging failure. And it's punished, in fact. And I feel like failure comes when people are taking risks and trying new things, which is great. And that's how people grow, and that's how people succeed. Do you ever see companies succeed because they just try to be mediocre and try to just pass and get the bare minimum and get their exams? No, they took risks. They pushed themselves to the next level, and that's how they succeed. And I feel like this has been instilled to us in a very, very, very early age. And the reason why I think this has all come to me is because I keep hearing all these ridiculous quotes all the time. I mean, we'll share them on social media, but all the classic quotes like, done is better than perfect. I literally said this the other day, because it's, and that was my excuse for basically not trying to do well. And I was sort of like, oh, I'll just do it. I'll just get it out there, and I'll just make it okay, at least it's out there. And I'm not thinking about how to make it the best. I'm not striving for excellence. I'm just striving to have something. It's like, again, quantity over quality, and this is so bad.

And I'm thinking, right, okay, this is because all these quotes are coming to my head. Done is better than perfect, and you know, life is too short to be stressed, and all this stuff, and I don't know, the secret of getting ahead is getting started. I can think of loads of these things. And like, there's all these bollocks quotes that you see online, and it's like, work smarter, not harder. That one kills me, and I get it, you know? Like, I get what they're trying to say. They're trying to be like, okay, be more efficient, you know, optimize your time. I get that, and that's working smarter, not harder. But some people translate this as, okay, you know, I'll do less and I don't need to work hard because that's what everyone tells me to do. And I think that's what, you know, all these sort of quotes are encouraging us. And I think the focus of work-life balance now and how much of that has become a buzz term and how much that is a focus in the world is encouraging mediocrity again. And people are talking about this work-life balance, but what on earth does that even mean? Now, pre-pandemic, this wasn't even a thing. People were just working really hard because they wanted to do really well, and, you know, hard work paid off. And, you know, I always think about every success story, and I don't see any of these successful people doing well without the hard work. And I hear people talking, yes, manifesting and all this nonsense, but what? Name someone who's actually done seriously well without putting in those hours. You may think they're an overnight success. You may just hear all the positive stuff, but you haven't heard the blood, sweat and tears that they've done, and all the sacrifices they've made to get to where they are. They all include that sort of stuff. So this work-life balance thing is always a mystery to me because I feel like people are focusing on the wrong thing. Now, the narrative around work-life balance is that people need to have four-day work week or whatever, and bosses need to ensure that they can pick up their kids, and they're not focusing about work. This is different for everyone. And now I see people using work-life balance as an excuse for not doing work. As soon as things become a bit difficult, then I don't have a good work-life balance. Work is not giving me a good work-life balance because I have to get home late.

And so now doing a normal nine to five is considered bad work-life balance because by the time you get home, you're late and you're tired, and so you don't really have time to do all the things that you want to do. But how did everyone do this for God knows how many years until now? It's only because everyone's used to moaning about it. So it's like now this whole work-life balance thing is just encouraging mediocrity because no one's going to work extra because they feel like, oh, they're not getting good work-life balance. And then those who actually do put in the additional work, they're being criticized by other people because they're saying all these buzzwords back to them. Oh, your boss is being toxic. They expect you to do over time and all this sort of stuff. And it's utterly ridiculous. Now, going back to the mediocrity thing, there's so many things I think are encouraging this. And I heard of something in the day known as the Peter Principle. I don't know if anyone's ever heard of it, but it's a concept in management, which basically observes that generally in a hierarchical company, people are promoted until they are incompetent. So, I mean, stay with me for this one because it is a bit confusing. So think about it. Pick an employee who you know, or use yourself as an example. You're really good at your job. You do so well. And you go to the boss, right, I need a promotion. Or even they notice you're doing so well and they give you promotion. Great. So you get promoted, but that job, that level of promotion is different. So the new job that you've got, whether it's a managerial position, has different skills. And now in your new job, you may be incompetent at those new skills because they don't necessarily translate to another. And so even if you then excel in that job, you'll get promoted again. And the point is, you'll keep getting promoted until you grow incompetent. So actually, the Peter principle means that you start off super competent, then you go competent, and then you go incompetent. And so every employee rises to his level of incompetence, which is actually nuts when you think about it. And there's actually a book about this. I think it's kind of satire, but the point is, it actually makes a lot of sense. And there's so much out there, which is promoting mediocrity, literally promoting them in jobs.

And again, people are always complaining about this, but the thing is, if you just turn up for work and do the bare minimum, and you consistently hit those targets, which again, it could be from the fact that management are setting poor targets, because think about it again, SMART goals, for example, let's take SMART. Let's take the A, it's achievable. Because when people are setting targets, they don't want to set them too high because they're worried that people might not get there and they'll be discouraged. And so they only set achievable targets. But what's the point of setting achievable targets? You're encouraging that mediocrity again. You're just giving them targets that are actually easy to achieve. Because if you try to hit the big targets, then you're worried that they're not gonna get it and they feel down. Stop protecting these people's feelings. You're literally encouraging them to be average. Set tough goals and make them raise their game to achieve those goals. That's how you create winners. Don't encourage mediocrity. And so this is what happens. And then these people get promoted and then they're in management positions, but they're actually not that good at their job. And then they are passing down their poor leadership skills to other people who are also mediocre. And again, because people are saying do what you love, and then it won't feel like a day of work in your life and all that sort of nonsense, and then people don't really love what they do, and they feel a bit down, and they're just not bothering putting in the work. This is why this whole quiet quitting thing happened, right? And so I feel like this is, everyone's encouraging to be mediocre. And it needs to stop happening because I feel like it's so hard and it's so difficult to motivate someone who doesn't even want to do their job well. So, but the thing is, everyone now is talking about, because of mental health and because everyone's, you know, fragile, we are celebrating the little wins. It's another thing, like everything, we have to find something to celebrate because we have to consistently feel positive all the time. So what we end up doing then is we are celebrating substandard work because we have to find something little and we have to find some little win and we're celebrating that, but it's ridiculous. And again, we are encouraging mediocrity. So let's say we celebrate some tiny win, which isn't really a win, really it's a failure, and we should really be analysing that and working out how to step up our game, but we're not. So again, nonsense, mediocrity is being celebrated.

But the one that kills me, and I hear it all the time, and I've seen this in so many trainings and there's like consultants and coaches who consistently say this phrase and encourage others to behave in this way, and it kills me. It's the one that says under promise and over deliver. Now, let's think about it. They want you to under promise. What that means is they want you to tell a client or tell whoever you're kind of doing work for that just, I guess, lower their expectations of what they're going to get from you. And then when you over deliver, they should be pleasantly surprised. But think about what this does. Like you're basically playing down what you could offer to someone. So say if you're in a sales process and you're trying to under promise to them, so the hope that you win the client and then hope that you do the work. And then when you over deliver, they're pleased. But doesn't that jeopardize your chance of actually winning the client in the first place? Now think about it. If you're sitting there under promising to your potential client, and then you're up against someone else who's over promising, who do you think they're gonna go with? They're obviously gonna go with the person over promising. Now obviously this is a no bullshit podcast. I run a no bullshit agency. I hate people that over promise and under deliver. I'm absolutely not encouraging that. However, I am encouraging over promise and over deliver. Who ever thought about that one? Why does it have to be one or the other? Now I love to promise and like more than what other people are giving because I think the industry's bullshit. So I would like to say, look, actually we're gonna do this, this and this. It's above what other people are offering, but that's because we're good at what we do. And then we raise our game and over deliver on that over promise. Now it's win, win, win. We've pushed ourselves. We've produced amazing work. The client's happy. We're doing great goals rather than mediocre goals. Why is no one saying this? Over promise and over deliver. Why has no one thought about that? I cannot stand that people are encouraging you to under promise and over deliver. I mean, even if you over deliver or under promise, you're probably doing still subpar work because depending on how under you promised about that work and you over deliver on that, you're still subpar.

And this is why standards are dropping all the time. And this is why our agency has got a mission statement to raise the bar of the creative industry because it sucks because people are following this ridiculous mantra to produce substandard work. And so the whole industry standard is dropping because all you need to do is be a little bit better than that cowboy down the street, and then actually you're winning the work. But no, you should over promise and over deliver. That's the only way you're gonna raise your game. That's the only way you're gonna raise the bar of everyone else in your team to step up to over promise and over deliver. So you need to do that. And that is the phrase that absolutely kills me. And so I wanted to just sniff out that piece of bullshit today and all the other kind of cheesy quotes that I can think of and do what you can with what you have, where you are and all that sort of stuff. No, don't do what you can. Do more than what you can. Do as the best you can bloody do. Like just raise your game and do more than you thought you ever could do. Shock yourself, surprise yourself. See what you actually really are capable of with what you have. No, I'd rather do more than I can. I want to find out what limits I've got and exceed them and get more than I already have with where I am. I don't know with where I want to be. Be adventurous, be ambitious. Jesus, like actually try to actually push yourself. And so don't fall into this mediocrity trap. Look for it everywhere, everywhere you go. It's encouraging you to just be mediocre. Everything's average, everything's okay. Like it's okay, you know, just like it's fine and everyone's just trying to make, everyone feel better at the moment because no one wants to push anyone. And you know, this episode's probably really triggered a lot of people. I'm probably thinking, God, that's Sabrina's right slave driver. Probably thinks that I'm like really like being harsh on all my team and all that sort of stuff. It's not like that at all. But I do believe in good quality. And actually everyone in my team also believes in good quality. Everyone wants to strive to be better. I believe in fact, that is one of our internal values. The S in our internal values is strive for excellence. Everyone in our team has that value. And that's why they're in the team. We don't discourage failure.

As I said at the beginning of this, I massively encourage failure because whenever you fail, you learn. And it's stigmatized or punished these days. And I think I like people who fail because it means they've taken a risk. If they're consistently passing, they're not pushing themselves and they're not taking a risk. And that's the only way you grow. So I'm not going to punish failure because it means you've tried, you've done something new. But I don't believe in mediocrity. I don't believe that you could just sit there and lie in your laurels and do nothing and that's okay and just sort of willow into the distance. So I'm not for one of those things, but I don't think it's anyone's fault if they are like that. I believe it's society's fault. I believe that everything around us encourages mediocrity and we need to stop that bullshit because that's what it is, it's bullshit. If you actually look carefully, there's messages like this everywhere. And I want you to, every time you see that now, I want you to think about it and think, right, this quote, this motivational quote, or this messaging out there is actually bullshit and actually I'm gonna raise my game. So I want every one of you to think about how you can raise your game. How are some of the things that you do on a day-to-day basis sort of encouraging you to actually accept failure, not like failure in that way, like I said, I encourage it, but accept a substandard level of whatever it is that you do. So say if it's like, okay, I wanna go to the gym three times a week and actually you went once. You'll be like, oh, at least I went once. No, that's not what it is. If you're going three times a week and you wanna go three times a week, then work out how you can go three times a week. What about if it's too much, just try going three times a week for five minutes a time. At least you're going those three times a week and then you've passed that bit. And then actually the five minutes, while you're there, will turn into 10 minutes, will turn into 15 minutes, will turn into an hour at the gym. Create those good habits. And that's how you actually improve and you strive for success. So that's my tea pens on this day. And I hope you've enjoyed this episode of Sniffing at the Bullshit, and I will see you next week for another dollop of realism.