Successful People Live Off-Peak
Have you ever noticed when exiting a movie theatre, how most of the crowd always tries to exit out the same door? Most theatres are pretty much the same. They have three or four sets of double doors, but 97% of the people exiting gravitate to the one door on the far right, which is usually the only one in an open position. However, if you wanted to break away from the crowd, save time and make it easy for yourself, all you’d have to do is take one giant step to the left and push on one of the other doors that is now directly in front of you. Which makes me wonder; why don’t most people do it?
Most people follow the crowd. They do the same things every day in the same way and at the same times, whether it works or not, when, in most cases, all they’d have to do is take that "one giant step to the left." Most people are so risk-averse, they don’t want to take the chance that if they break out of line and push on another door, it might be locked.
Successful people always look to break away from the crowd. They look at what everyone else is doing and do something totally different. Successful people live off-peak. They don’t go to banks on Friday afternoons, stand on line, complain about the line and then do it again next Friday afternoon. They don’t get on the highway at rush hour every day and complain about the traffic. They might leave a little earlier or come home a little later, rather than waste time in traffic. They to try frequent places like stores, restaurants and theatres during off-peak times.
Recently, while speaking to a group of college students, I was amazed that most of them were limiting their job search within close proximity to home or campus. Was it any wonder so many of them were struggling to find a job? I asked why they would limit their possibilities to such a drastic degree. With so many exciting things going on in the global economy, the person who is willing to expand his or her radius is greatly increasing their opportunities.
They have no families to support or mortgage payments hanging over their heads, so where was the risk? Are we so conditioned to doing what everyone else considers normal, that anything out of the ordinary is considered a gamble?
If you follow the crowd, you can never hope to be any more than part of the crowd. To be successful, you have to be willing to take that one giant step out of the line.