Refuse to be average. Let you heart soar as high as it will. -A.W. Tozer (1897-1963), pastor and author
If you take data sample you can plot it out on a graph and develop a bell curve. Although it’s not a perfect bell shape, there certainly will be a big bump in the middle somewhere. That peak is indicative of the average. The place where the majority of the data tends to gravitate towards. What’s most interesting is the question whether or not that’s a good or bad place to be.
Let’s take for example the data relating to the number of sales in the real estate business on a per agent business over the course of a year. When it’s plotted, the high point on the bell curve is somewhere around 3-5 transactions per agent, per year. Well if you’re not in the business you might not think too much about that number until of course I do some quick math for you. Assume an average gross commission of $5,000 less payment to the brokerage (subtract $2000), and we’re left with $6-$10K for the average agent a year. Oh yes and that’s before taxes and expenses!
So in this case the bell curve reveals the ugly truth about an industry in dire straights. Even worse is that nothing has really changed for many years. In other words the industry seems to continue to support a very mediocre average performance. So when I drew the bell curve on paper it was compelling me to ask how and why does this continue to happen? After all there are plenty of people that perform way out on the right side of the curve selling many hundreds of homes in a single year…so why don’t the majority of agents copy them and move in that direction?
Self-righteous people can talk themselves into forgetting they are part of a civilization. They can then feed on that culture, bringing it down. David Brin (1950-), scientist and award winning author of science fiction, best known for his Uplift stories.
