The Other Team...by Randy Gage
We were in the Grand Ballroom of the Sheraton on the Park, in Sydney, Australia—900 cheering, positive people and me... I had just finished doing a presentation and was signing books and shaking hands at the back of the room. I had talked about mindset, business opportunity and dreams. How I went from a dishwasher to a multi-millionaire, and how the people in the room could do the same. The music was blaring, people were still mingling around, and then he came. The dictionary guy. He stood around, hovering and fidgeting. Finally he worked his way up to me, holding a pocket sized, dime store dictionary, which he was fondling nervously. He reminded me that during the session, I had splashed water into the audience. He opened the dictionary to a page that had received a droplet or two, and explained that he had bought the dictionary for his mother. And now he didn’t know how he could give it to her. I laughed, assuming that he wanted to keep it as a souvenir or was making a joke. He wasn’t. He pulled a receipt out of his pocket, and again started mumbling about how could he give his mother a dictionary that had water splashed on it. I reached in my pocket and pulled out a $50 bill. I took the dictionary from him and give him the bill. “I’m buying it from you,” I declared. Then I threw it into the garbage behind me. “Do you want the receipt?” He whined. “No I don’t need it. Goodbye,” I replied. And I turned away to sign some more books. My friends told me later that he went back and took the book out of the garbage before he slunk off. Now I have met more than my share of morons in my day, and I’d like to say that this one was something special. But he wasn’t. Just another garden-variety idiot. One more cog in the collective; another soldier in the “sick, broke and stupid” brigade. One of literally dozens you can interact with on any given day. In the room, that night, he was probably outnumbered 890 to ten. It was a room full of dreamers—positive, success-oriented people who are working for a better life. And they understand that this is accomplished by self-development and personal growth. The dictionary guy is trying to cheat the system. He wants the good things in life, but he’s not willing to put out the effort. Of course he will fail, and of course he will be broke his whole life. But he will have lots of company . . . Because outside of the ballroom at the Sheraton—he’s got a much bigger team than you and I do. That night we had a 90% edge. But in the “real world,” those percentages are reversed! In polite society, you and I are the aberration, the weirdos. Now the interesting thing is this . . . His team will always outnumber us ten to one, but we will always win the match. Because we live our lives in accord with universal laws. Whereas the herd is always looking for the short cut; always trying another angle to get something for nothing. You can always beat the herd on the journey to success and fulfillment. However, forgive me for sounding like a lottery commercial, but you can’t win if you don’t play . . . See you can always beat the other team, but only if you stay in the game. And sad to say, a lot of people don’t stay in the game. They give up, and get swallowed back into the herd. Where they aimlessly roam the plains, running from predators, and wandering the horizon looking for the next watering hole. Please don’t ever let that happen to you. You have to be strong. You have to be focused. And you have to be willing to be ostracized, ridiculed and left out. And you have to realize that this is where your power has to come from. I’ve talked in my Daily Awakenings about not fitting in. If this is not an issue for you now, it will quickly become one. You will find that the number of TV shows you watch, movies you want to go to, best sellers you want to read, radio personalities you will listen to, magazines that interest you and people that you want to spend extended periods of time with will dramatically decrease. And I mean dramatically. And this can be daunting to some people. Especially when it means changing your daily habits and moving away from many of the people in your life. And for some, the fear of this is enough to send them scurrying back to the safety of the herd. Change . . . One of the most popular talks in the corporate speaking circuit is how to deal with change. It seems that many people are petrified of change, and corporations are spending a fortune training employees to learn how to adapt and embrace it. It almost seems silly to me, because what is the alternative? Groundhog Day. The same day, every day, over and over again. Which would be death to someone like you and me. For to grow forward, you have to grow. And that means change. Every day. And then some. My goal is to be a little better person every single day. Every single one. Doesn’t have to be monumental and earth shattering improvement. (Although it’s great if it is.) But it means I have to be at least just a little better off, a little further along the journey by the time I go to bed at night. This might mean I gained some knowledge from a book I read. It could be that I worked out and am in a little better physical shape. I might have learned a lesson from a mistake I made. (Or even better, a mistake someone else made!) It could be that I developed a loving relationship deeper, or forgave someone I had been holding a grudge against. It can manifest itself in a massive number of different ways, but they all involve change. And my willingness to seek out and embrace change. So how about YOU? Are you open to change? And even better, actually eager to see it come about on a daily basis? That’s one of the requirements to keep playing for our team, and not the dictionary guy’s team. Self Confidence . . . Another important aspect of staying on the winning team is being comfortable enough with yourself that you don’t need approval from the herd. I told you that you have to be willing to be ostracized, ridiculed and left out. This is no lie. Have you noticed something about alcoholics? They always want you to drink with them. Smokers want you to puff along. Middle age guys don’t like to go to strip clubs alone. Why? If you participate in the same things they are, it validates what they are doing. Or at least they think so. They use the fact that everyone else is drinking as justification for why they are drinking. Unfortunately the same kind of thing can happen in a lot of areas. When you quit smoking, become unwilling to gossip, get on a fitness program or almost any way you start to raise your consciousness, stimulate your mind, and grow as a person, you start to realize that most of the people around you have no such desires. Fitting in with the herd around you can really be an issue. You go from a “girlfriend” or “one of the boys” — to someone that is to be regarded suspiciously. Because you are not drinking, or smoking, or gossiping, or participating in some other form of victim-hood, the herd won’t trust you. In fact, they won’t even like you. Alcoholics do not like sober people. Dysfunctional people don’t like happy ones. And poor people usually don’t like rich ones. I quoted Murray Rothbard in my Daily Awakening on the subject of H.L. Menken and the place in society for him and people like him. He said, “He must, on the one hand, be an individualist with a serene and unquenchable sense of self-confidence; he must be supremely ‘inner-directed’ with no inner shame or quaking at going against the judgment of the herd. “He must, secondly, have a supreme zest for enjoying life and the spectacle it affords; he must be an individualist who cares deeply about liberty and individual excellence, but who can—from that same dedication to truth and liberty—enjoy and lampoon a society that has turned its back on the best that it can achieve.” Now I hate to admit, I probably take a little too much joy in lampooning society. It’s an occupational hazard when you do what I do. On the positive side, it gives me the mindset that I couldn’t care less what the herd thinks of me. I don’t get my worth by receiving validation from sick, broke and stupid people. And you can’t either. It’s important that your self-confidence comes from knowing that you have a purpose in life, and live by values that support that purpose. This is so important because of the biggest danger of all from the other team . . . That they may wear down your resolve, cause you to question your abilities, and kill your dreams! That’s what I’m talking about when I say you can’t win if you don’t play. When you hang around with the herd, some of their consciousness starts to infect you. Research from Dr. David McClelland of Harvard University finds that no matter how much training and development a person receives, if they go back to their previous victim, un-ambitious former friends and associates, they start to backslide. What can this mean in actuality? It means you hear about an investment opportunity, and you say, “It’s probably too good to be true.” Well a lot of them are. But you’ll never get a winner if you don’t try. It means you’re up for a promotion, but you say something like, “Well it’s all politics anyway. I won’t even bother to try.” Or you love someone, but you are afraid to tell them—for fear of being rejected. You have a chance to start a business opportunity, but you pass it up for fear of failure. I could go on and on, but you know exactly what I mean. When the game is over, you are still in the batters box, with the bat on your shoulder. You never took a swing. THAT is the danger you have to watch out for. The herd will infect you with their beliefs. And because these beliefs are so prevalent, you begin to question your bold, daring and prosperous beliefs. And your dream gets just a little bit smaller, day-by-day. I know that you have to fraternize with the other team in your day-to-day life. It’s unavoidable. And necessary. But never lose sight of the fact that they are the other team. Look for recruitment opportunities whenever you can. But make sure you have your “forcefield” on “High” setting. And don’t let them drag you back toward the abyss. For more than 15 years, Randy Gage has been helping people transform self-limiting beliefs into self-fulfilling breakthroughs to achieve their dreams. Randy Gage is a modern day explorer in the field of body-mind development and personal growth. He is the author of the best-selling albums, Dynamic Development and Prosperity and director of BreakthroughU.com. For more resources and to subscribe to Randy's free ezine newsletters click here now. Copyright © Randy Gage All rights reserved worldwide.
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