I had a dream the other night that I was a defensive pro football player. In the dream, I was 20 feet above the ground (remember it was a dream) and when the runner came in my direction, I couldn’t get down on the turf to do anything to stop him. The coach was yelling into the speaker that was in my helmet to “tackle the bastard!” My response was, “I have too high a vantage point.” Then I woke up.

Somehow I don’t think the dream was about football.

When your vantage point is too high, it’s hard to interact with the people on the ground – whether you’re a General smoking a cigar up on a hill overlooking the troops on the battlefield or someone who doesn’t want to interact with the “little people.”

“Too high a vantage point” is a metaphor for superiority.

I have the credentials to speak to superiority because I have an advanced degree in it. Here’s what I know first hand: Superiority is an elixir that keeps you from being a mixer. That means that you feel good about your position but you’re not positioned on the same level with others, so it’s hard for you to interact.

Superior people miss a lot in life. That’s because they believe they’re better than people living one. They’re too busy commenting in their head about how above the fray they are to notice that no one’s knocking on their door asking them to come out and play.

There is a remedy for superiority. Notice that you made it up. You’re not really superior, or inferior, for that matter; you just made it up in your mind. Then you started to believe your own fairy tale.

Once you notice that you’ve created this mindset, you have the ability to make up a new one – one that doesn’t leave you high and dry letting life pass you by.

Start to observe your “better than” moments and train yourself to laugh at them because they are, after all, entertaining theatre. Laughing at yourself on your high horse is a trigger to dismount and get down on the ground, the only place you can horse around.

All the best,

John