In a culture that promotes avarice and excess as the good life, we conflate success with achievement of the extraordinary. In this simple model, winners are those who achieve the extraordinary. The prize is not the achievement you strive for, but the striving itself. To escape the trap, we need to make the ordinary come alive.
We live in a culture that endlessly promotes and celebrates the achievement of the extraordinary—of those who accomplished some supreme feat in a single, narrow domain.
The Trap of the Extraordinary is that we conflate success with the achievement of the extraordinary. Winners are those who achieve the extraordinary, losers are those who do not.
To escape the trap, there are two mindset shifts to focus on: (1) It’s not about achieving the extraordinary, it's about finding purpose, joy, and fulfillment in the ordinary along the way; and (2) The prize is not the achievement you strive for, but the striving itself.