The Meaning Behind Screw The Average
Welcome, and thank you for joining us, our blog is meant to document our journey of continual long-term travel, becoming digital nomads, and pursuing financially independent, retire early (FI/RE). Over time we'll share our challenges, our stories, our goals, and our mistakes... but first, how about we start with the meaning of our name?
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About Screw The Average
We live our lives with the goal of being better than average. Well, honestly, not just better than average, but within the 90th percentile*.
What does this mean? It means when evaluating how we live (our resource consumption, our expertise in an area, our travel style, our discipline, etc.) we strive to be better, stronger and higher achieving than at least 90%* of the rest of the world.
While not always realistic, we shoot for the stars, because if we don’t make it, at least we’ll hit the moon!
There's A Story Behind It
During the beginning of his career, Sergio had an amazing work environment with not only leaders in his industry but with leaders and talent who were willing to give him a chance, take him under their wing and challenge him to be great.
At one point, while speaking with a colleague he looked up to, Sergio mentioned that he wanted to achieve what he had achieved and to be similar to him. As his mentor looked at him and started to say, ‘Why be like me…?’, Sergio interrupted and said ‘with all due respect, I don’t want to be like you, I want to be better than you.’
This stuck with Sergio throughout his career and guided him as he made choices and developed his profession, life, and ambitions. Sergio brought this to our relationship and it stuck with both of us.
It's since morphed from being better than average to being in the 90th percentile*.
“We challenge you to Screw The Average; to push yourself to be in the top 10% and leave nothing at the table!”
*We chose the 90th percentile as a placeholder; this is an arbitrary number and can be anything you choose and that’s right for you. Maybe an 80th percentile goal is ideal, or maybe 97th percentile is best. The decision is up to the individual, whatever you pick, don’t let this numerical value hold you back!
