"Don't be average. Don’t be boring. Be bold. Be fascinating!" - Futurist Jim Carroll
2025 is almost a wrap.
And that brings me to 279 days of my Daily Inspiration post in 2025, continuing the tradition that began early in August 2016, where each workday involves a bit of fresh new insight.
Since then, I have not missed ONE single workday. Come hell or high water, power failure or jet lag, the post has gone out!
Here's a slideshow of what I wrote in 2025. 279 inspirations! Today marks 280!
And then it starts all over again tomorrow, on Thursday, January 1, 2026 - with my "10 Great Words for 2026," which itself began in 2006.
If you haven't signed up, join the 1/4 million who get it every day.
Do so at subscribe.jimcarroll.com
There's no doubt that there's a lot of challenge to come in 2026, but there's also a lot of opportunity.
Opportunities become even bigger when exponential trends become a reality.
But here's the thing - it's up to you whether you will turn it into an opportunity, or whether the challenge will bury you.
It depends on the choices you make and the actions you take.
But there is a dark side to velocity.
If you choose to let the challenges rule, you'll slide into mediocrity like everyone else - you'll embrace it.
But if you decide to be bold, be daring, you'll escape it - and you'll find it absolutely fascinating!
Here's your final chalkboard summary!
So what's your choice - are you going to embrace, or escape, the potential for mediocrity that is in front of us with this exponential world?
That's why I wrote these books!
You need to think about the issue of mediocrity in terms of your personal choice and the company you are involved with. If you decide to do boring things and chase average, you'll be mediocre. If you choose to be bold, you'll find things to be far more fascinating! If you take a mediocre organization and give it average tools and vague objectives, you don't get innovation. You get accelerated incompetence.
I explored this side of the equation in my satire "Embracing Mediocrity"—a guide on how to do the bare minimum—and its antidote, "Escaping Mediocrity." In the past, you could survive being "average" because the market moved slowly. You could hide in the margins.
You should choose to buy the books right now. Be bold! You'll find them to be fascinating!
Visit mediocirity.jimcarrolll.com. Use the code BEBOLD, and you'll get 20% off!
Here's what you need to think about.
1. The Exponential Mindset
The trap many leaders fall into today isn't just moving too slow - it's trying to be fast on the wrong things.
We are living in an exponential reality. But remember: exponentiation works on negative numbers too. If you automate a flawed process, you kill your business exponentially faster. If you use AI to scale a boring marketing message, you just annoy more people in less time. If you learn to use AI to focus on the wrong skills, you'll get the wrong knowledge.
The mindset shift here isn't about speed; it's about goals. You must stop asking "How can we do this faster?" and start asking "Is this worth doing at all?"
2. The Trend: The Death of 'Average.'
Why is mediocrity suddenly fatal? Because the barrier to entry for "average" has dropped to zero.
- Generative AI can produce "average" copy, "average" code, and "average" strategy in seconds.
- Automation can deliver "average" service instantly.
In a way, as powerful as it is, AI takes us on a race to the bottom where everyone and everything is average. How do you stand out?
If your output is merely "good enough," you are now competing with a machine that can do "good enough" for free.
The trend is clear: Average is common.
The market only rewards the unique, the bold, and the human.
3. The Opportunity: Radical Uniqueness
This is where the concepts in Escaping Mediocrity become your survival guide.
When everyone else is mediocre, you need to escape it. You need to be unique. You need to stand out.
The fact is, the only way to survive the acceleration of mediocrity is to double down on what makes you unique!
We are living in a world where the instant eat the hesitant. But do not mistake "fast" for "good." The tools of tomorrow will let you build anything instantly.
That means the only competitive advantage left is your ability to stand out.
To do that, you must align with the four pillars of the exponential age. Here is your 50-point checklist for escaping the gravity of the average.
#1: DON'T BE AVERAGE
'Small thinking is a liability. You must collapse time, leverage AI, and refuse to accept linear limitations.
For the Business:
- Start a "Moonshot Factory": Focus resources on wild ideas that improve things 100x, not just 10%.
- Use the "Draft Zero" Rule: Use AI to generate immediate first drafts instead of starting from scratch.
- Create a "No-Code" Zone: Empower employees to build apps without needing to write complex code.
- Automate the Boring Stuff: Let AI handle paperwork so managers can focus on leading.
- Build a "Digital Twin": Use a virtual model to simulate thousands of scenarios before real-world launches.
- Measure "Speed of Success": Track velocity alongside profit; speed is now a critical asset.
- The "Two-Pizza Rule": Keep teams small; if two pizzas can't feed them, they're too big.
- Predictive Customer Service: Fix problems before customers even realize they exist.
- Flexible Pricing: Adjust prices instantly based on real-time market demand, not committee delays.
For the Individual:
- Become a "One-Person Unicorn": Leverage AI to build a massive business with zero headcount.
- Master "Vibe Coding": Remove the technical barrier to building big ideas by focusing on vision, not syntax.
- Adopt the "Draft Zero" Rule: Collapse the time between thought and execution.
- Become a "Partnership Operator": Scale your output by orchestrating AI agents rather than doing the work.
- Conduct a "Latency Audit": Ruthlessly eliminate "waiting" from your life.
- Leverage "Network Velocity": Align only with those who move at exponential speed.
- Embrace "Zero-Latency Delivery": Ship instantly; don't wait for "finished."
- Become a "Just-in-Time" Learner: Scale your knowledge instantly as needed.
- The 10x Rule: Set goals that are mathematically impossible without exponential leverage.
#2: BE BOLD
Safety is the new risk. You must kill the zombies and make the hard decisions that safety-obsessed leaders avoid.
For the Business:
- Appoint a "Chief Disruption Officer": Institutionalize the attack on your own business model.
- Ban the "Annual Budget": Kill the illusion of predictability; fund the now.
- Implement a "Zombie Project" Audit: Have the courage to kill the 90% complete failures.
- Gamify the "Kill": Reward the bold act of stopping bad work.
- Launch a "Bug Bounty" for Bureaucracy: Attack your own internal red tape.
- Create a "Legacy Sunset" Date: Boldly plan the death of your new tech the day you launch it.
- Shift to "Skill-Based" Hiring: Ignore the safe credentials (degrees) for the bold ones (ability).
For the Individual:
- Execute the "Slash and Burn" Pivot: Burn your failed projects to fuel the next one.
- Dissolve Your Job Title: Boldly define yourself by the problem you solve, not the role you hold.
- Develop "Chameleon Revenue": Bet on income streams that don't exist yet.
- Court Brutal Criticism: Seek the pain of feedback to grow faster.
- Build a "Cognitive Firewall": Aggressively reject the "safe" addiction of doomscrolling.
- Presume Success: Operate with the audacity that the win is inevitable.
- Act Decisively: Choose the risk of a "now" decision over the safety of a "later" one.
- Own Your Outcomes: Take total radical responsibility for your future.
#3 - DON'T BE BORING
Boring is a death sentence. When execution is a commodity, creativity is the only currency.
For the Business:
- Declare a "War on Boring": Refuse to publish "safe" corporate content that no one reads.
- Sponsor "Collision Events": Force the "weird" intersections (e.g., biologists x coders).
- Create a "Shadow Board" of Under-30s: Inject fresh, non-boring perspectives into leadership.
For the Individual:
- "Hunt in the Blur": Look for opportunities in the weird intersections others ignore.
- Monitor the "Fringe": Find your inputs in the subcultures, not the mainstream.
- Defy Predictability: Intentionally break your patterns to stay cognitively alive.
- Reject "Good Enough": Refuse to produce output that an AI could generate.
#4: BE FASCINATING!
In an era of synthetic perfection, your flaws are your ultimate watermark.
For the Business:
- Deploy "Radical Transparency" Dashboards: Fascinate the market with total honesty.
- Create a "Customer Zero" Program: Build empathy by suffering the same friction as your users.
- Demand "Video-First" Communication: Replace boring text with human face and voice.
- Replace "Exit Interviews" with "Stay Interviews": Show fascination with your people before they leave.
- Invert the "Hierarchy of Wisdom": Show the humility to learn from the youngest in the room.
For the Individual
- Publish a "Resume of Failure": Fascinate others by showing your scars, not just your trophies.
- Practice "Kintsugi Leadership": Highlight your cracks as your most valuable features.
- Monetize "Trust Capital": Become a premium source of "verified human" truth.
- Practice "Wisdom Inversion": Actively seek mentors who are younger than you.
Escape the trap of mediocrity!
The acceleration of mediocrity is real, but it is optional. You have the playbook.
Now you just need the mindset.
For a deeper dive into the strategies that will define the winners of 2026, you need the full manual.
Whether you need the antidote to average or a satirical look at what to avoid, grab your copies of "Escaping Mediocrity" and "Embracing Mediocrity" today.
Get them now at mediocrity.jimcarroll.com
Futurist Jim Carroll will resume his Daily Inspiration tomorrow with his 10 Great Words for 2026.