If you want to be like everybody else, do what everybody else does.
“We tell his they. can be anything they want to be, yet we funnel them into taking the same path as everybody else because it’s safe.
Ships are safe in the harbor, but that’t not what ships were built for.
Teach them to be fearless trailblazers & to always best on themselves.”
-Ray Zingler on X
I remember being 15, sitting in math class, bored out of my soul, thinking to myself, “what the hell are we doing?”
I wake up robotically and then go to this building, sit in a chair, and then every hour, a bell would ring and then I would pick-up my stuff and walk to over to another chair to sit in.
While I undoubtedly had a couple great teachers (who are now friends today) very little of it felt like education, which I thought at the time, and even moreso today, should be invigorating.
It wasn’t invigorating. It was mind numbing.
It felt like schooling. An environment where my proctor was following a government mandated protocol and telling us words that we needed to memorize so we could put our “knowledge” on a scantron in a few days.
And somehow this was the best way for our leaders to be able to judge our real-world competence and intelligence.
The ironic part about the whole thing is that construction foreman with GED’s in their 20’s earn more than senior level academics.
What this tells me is that the world cares far less about how much you know and far more about your ability to add tangible value to it.
But anyway, I slogged through High School & went the college route because where I am from, you’re “supposed to”.
Despite (reluctantly) going to college where it was more of the same, I started my 3rd business at 18 years old, Zingler Strength.
I would go to college in the morning and train athletes & adults in the afternoons and evenings.
Eventually, school got heavily in the way of my business (wasn’t I going to school to get a job in the first place?) so I stopped going and focused on improving my ability to deliver a high-level service. And I never looked back.
While I recognize my path is atypical and the “traditional path” is definitely great for some..
It’s most certainly, statistically speaking (ironic, huh) not the only or best path.
If you want to be like everybody else, do what everybody else does.
If you want to maximize your potential, go against the grain.
Blaze your own trail and always bet on yourself in the process.
