I recently read The Dip, a great little book by Seth Godin. It inspired these thoughts about tall poppy syndrome in New Zealand.
Tall poppy syndrome refers to the phenomenon where high achievers and/or people who stand out are criticised or resented for their talents or achievements.
We often talk about tall poppy syndrome and how bad it is.
The fear is that if we standout someone will cut us down.
It occurred to me however that the real crime is not that people cut others down for doing well or standing out. I honestly don’t know if people really do that.
The crime is that we let that stop us from standing out. We let them cut us down.
And then we teach each other (and our kids) to be worried about people cutting us down and to be careful about standing out.
At the moment it doesn’t matter if people cut us down or not, we never do anything to stand out anyway.
We are still afraid, and we are letting that control us.
So start standing out, start doing great things. If someone cuts you down? - Challenge them to better you instead If someone thinks you’re great? - Celebrate with them, thank them.. and show them they can be great too!