One of the things I spent a great deal of time on is questioning myself all the time. If everyone is doing this, does it make sense for me to do it too? Because if you do exactly everything the average person does, then the outcome will be average. You cannot, by definition, be different from average if you do what average does. Trying not to be average is more difficult than it sounds, because of the herd mentality. People, by default, crave to be part of the herd. You risk being criticized by society when you stand out and people naturally don't like to be criticized. So if I want my child to not be average, I must be well aware of these societal traps. I do not want to be the person driving my child towards mediocrity or worse. Adding to the challenge is the Dunning–Kruger effect where the most stupid segment also think they are the smartest. And you end up with stupid people giving you the most confident advice that turns out to be wrong. With social media, the proliferation of idiots giving bad advice has never been greater. That's why it is extremely important to always think for oneself and not rely on the advice of others. One way I deal with this is to assign more weight on advice coming from people whom I want to be. If I want to be a top investor, I am more likely to take advice from the best investors. Even so, they can be wrong too, so one must always think for themselves. In the end, one has to bear the full consequences of their own actions. Being different is no guarantee of success, but by not being different, you are guaranteed to be average.