Why Following the Crowd Destroys Your Edge

"Especially in a culture that rewards imitation, noise, and staying comfortably within the herd. We're trained from an early age to fit in, follow along, and avoid rocking the boat. It starts in school, continues in college, and metastasizes in corporate culture. Show up, do what everyone else is doing, and clock out. Rinse, repeat. Blend in, be agreeable, and maybe, just maybe, get rewarded for it someday."

"But here's the reality: no one who blends in ever stands out. Competitive Advantage Comes From Contrast If you're doing what everyone else is doing, same schedule, same habits, same distractions, same mental diet, then you've effectively eliminated any edge you could've had. You've opted into a game where mediocrity is the default outcome. Let's be real: following the crowd might feel safer, but it's the fastest path to average. And average is nowhere near where excellence lives."

"If you want to build something different, become someone exceptional, or lead in any capacity, then you need to of the mass behavior loop. Full stop. Your Attention Is Being Farmed A big part of why people end up walking the same path is because they're being herded there by machines. "The majority of the population becomes slaves to AI-driven recommendation systems. And so the content everybody's fed is the same thing, and we all become the same.""

Cultural and institutional pressures condition people to conform from early education through corporate life, encouraging imitation and safe routines. Blending in removes any competitive advantage by aligning schedules, habits, distractions, and mental diets with the majority, producing mediocrity rather than excellence. Building something different or becoming exceptional requires breaking free of mass behavior loops and adopting contrasting choices. Modern attention economies and AI-driven recommendation systems herd people toward the same content and behaviors, amplifying homogenization. Following the crowd may feel safer, but safety often trades away the possibility of distinction and leadership.

Read at It's A Long Road