Sunday Story...Traffic Jam

Sunday Story…Traffic Jam

“There is no traffic jam on the extra mile.”

I heard a friend of mine, Kenny Rossi, say this the other day. I am not sure if he coined it or if he heard it someplace else. Kenny is a relationship marketer extraordinaire and one of the most positive people I know and I know some pretty positive people. So when he talks, I listen…I don’t always do but I do listen!

The world wants you to be average. All the people around you really don’t want you to be anything but like everyone else. Remember back in middle school and everyone was trying to “be themselves” but anyone who wasn’t like everyone else was shunned, ostracized, made fun of or bullied until they conformed and complied? Remember that? Well the world is like that. A bucket of crabs always trying to pull the one trying to get out of the bucket back down into the mass of crabs until Mister Get me outta here Crab gives up and sinks into the mass of mediocrity with all the rest of the crabs in the bucket.

This is where the traffic jam is…in the teeming majority of people moving along in the same direction. I used to drive to the San Francisco Bay Area frequently. I was fortunate to be going the opposite way of everyone else most of the time. And while I was hurtling along at 70 miles per hour I was so glad not to be on the other side in bumper to bumper traffic doing 10 miles per hour. I think this would be true of most of us. I mean do you really get up in the morning and say to yourself…”boy, I hope I can find a really good traffic jam today”? I know I don’t.

So why are you living the rest of your life that way? Is there some way to get moving in the direction no one else is going? Is there something you can do or some way you can do it that no one else is doing it? Or at least fewer people are doing it? Is that going to be a little scary? Of course it is.

Let’s be honest…we worship, adore and revere those people who are way past average and mediocre. The Michael Jordans, the Bill Gates, the Jerry Rices, the Warren Buffets, the Bruce Lees are put up on a pedestal because they are not average, they are not mediocre. They are not like you or I, they are extraordinary. They have gone the extra mile.

Think back…have you ever gone that extra mile? Have you ever done what it took, no matter what it took, no matter the obstacle, no matter the challenge, you were going to finish the task, do the job? When was the last time you went the extra mile?
There isn’t going to be a traffic jam on that extra mile. Why not? Because most of us are not willing to go there. We aren’t willing to do the work. We aren’t willing to be committed to a single driving thing, passion, goal, or outcome. It is easier to sit back and wait for the work to come to you (it never does). It easier to stay mired in the muck with your friends lamenting your fate (and all the rest of the crabs). There isn’t any short term gratification in going the extra mile. And there is no guarantee of reaching your destination after you go the extra mile. BUT there is a guarantee that you will never be anything but average unless you go that extra mile.

Most of us have given up on the extra mile. Maybe you tried once or twice and didn’t get there. Maybe the extra mile just looked too hard. Maybe the goal didn’t really inspire you to go there. Maybe it was something placed upon you by your parents, or some other part of society and it just didn’t light you up. O.K…get over yourself and find something worth going the extra mile for. Work from a place of overreaching and overriding passion. Be so totally unreasonable that failure is not an option.

And if you get a flat tire, or run out of gas or someone tries to run you off that extra mile it really won’t matter because you know that being on that extra mile will result in something fantastic, something magical, and something extraordinary. Something so out of the ordinary that your life will never be the same. If you never get to the end of that mile well you had a heckuva ride with almost no traffic!

You were not put on this earth to be average, to be mediocre. You are an amazing, wonderful and special human being. If you are allowing, or have allowed the world, the culture or society to convince you that it is OK to lie on the coach and watch T.V. or that it is acceptable to be just another sheep in the herd, a cog in the machine, you need to change your thinking. You need to get out on that extra mile and see what there is to be seen. You need to go that extra mile to see just how good, how amazing, how truly special you are and you can be.

It will be so nice to see some extra traffic on the extra mile. This blog is one of my extra miles by the way. Next month will mark 3 years of weekly posts. That’s 156 blog posts, over 156,000 words, a body of work that proves, if nothing else, that perseverance counts for something. Thanks to each of you who read these…it is enheartening to know you are out there. Thanks to Tom Callos ( http://www.tomcallos.com/ ) who started a process 5 or 6 years ago and continues to inspire. And Thanks to Kenny Money for planting the seed that this project has become.

Get out there…the scenery is great, the trip is fun, and there is no traffic on the extra mile!!!!

Namaste
John
“Teaching Focus, Inspiring Transformation”
www.martialartsnevada.com

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