Friends of Dave #436: 🚶💨 crop dusting the patio🚶♀️💨
Life shrinks or expands according to one's courage.
Friends, I like to think I have pretty thick skin.
As you should know by now, I’m a “tell it like it is” person. That is, in part, because I appreciate and prefer direct feedback as well.
So you can call me obnoxious.
Call me opinionated.
Call me relentless.
Call me intense.
Call me competitive.
Call me short — both in temper and stature.
Call me whatever fits the moment.
I usually am pretty good with it.
But here’s one thing I ask: DON’T call me mediocre.
Next to having your parents tell you “we’re not mad, we’re just disappointed” when you messed up as a kid, if you are an obnoxious, opinionated, relentless, intense, competitive short tempered and statured person (okay…okay…maybe even if you happen to be a teeny weeny bit of just one of those attributes), I think being called mediocre has to be one of the biggest soul crushing things a human can say to another human being.
I don’t know about you, but I would take being called a loser over being called mediocre every single time.
I wrote a little bit about this here a number of years ago but a few things have come up recently that got me thinking about the perils of mediocrity (and accepting mediocrity) again.
To me, to be absolutely clear, mediocrity isn’t about winning or losing or being the best.
It’s about not living up to potential.
It’s about not doing whatever it takes, within one’s control and with whatever talents or abilities you have to try to achieve something.
It’s about not caring enough or making the effort to be more than just average.
It’s about settling for a less than ideal result because it’s just the easier, more convenient or more socially acceptable thing to do.
It’s about phoning it in, shrugging and saying “it all pays the same.”
I happened to find this quote from Anais Nin while I was curating links this week that I think also fits this narrative very well.
Life shrinks or expands according to one's courage.
To put it in the context of this preamble, to me this means to be mediocre you allow yourself to shrink because you to don’t exhibit the courage for expansion.
Re-read the quote and think about it….
You can try and you may fail, but that doesn’t mean you are mediocre — because you had the courage to take a risk in the first place.
Friends, don’t allow yourself or others to ever settle for mediocrity. Don’t surround yourself with people who accept mediocrity. Don’t fall into a trap where you convince yourself that mediocre is the most feasible outcome.
You are better than that. We are better than that.
Life is too short to let it shrink in the name of mediocrity.
There is an infinite amount of space for life to expand — if we have the courage.
Strive to make your mark and be labeled anything the world wants to label you.
But don’t, under any circumstances, be mediocre.
XOXO
Dave
And now a few things to make you smarter…
This ranking tracks the most popular AI use cases as sourced from an analysis done by Marc Zao-Sanders for Harvard Business Review. He examined thousands of forum posts over the last year in a follow-up to his 2024 analysis.
“I totally support fart walks.”
It may sound silly, but physicians say farting on the street following a meal can help to improve long-term health. “Crop dusting” the patio, avenue or boardwalk can improve intestinal function, stave off diabetes and even reduce your risk of cancer.
A “Gulf of America”-style saga is unfolding in the U.S. culinary world: Texas is moving closer to officially renaming the New York strip. There’s a Texas bill up for debate next week that would direct the state’s Department of Agriculture to call the cut a “Texas strip.”
In the Oscar-winning film Conclave (which is now seeing a huge resurgence in viewing since the recent death of Pope Francis) , the complex political structure of the Catholic Church is laid out on the big screen as the College of Cardinals gather to elect a new pope. The plot of the film is fictional, but the papal election process, known as a conclave, is real. The movie gets a lot of it right — and a few key things wrong.
A little-known provision in a 100-year-old contract opened up the door for private investors (which include Chris Christie, Fisk University and the Musicians Emergency Fund) to mint money from mouthwash sales. In fact, the Catholic Archdiocese of New York owned a 50% stake in Listerine royalties for nearly two decades, raking in ~$13m over 16 years.