Femi LazarusCEO at Femi Lazarus Consulting

Your aspirations are shaped by your exposure. It's hard to pursue what you've never seen modeled.

7 Jul 2026 · 3 min

Watch on YouTube

3:01

In this conversational excerpt, Femi Lazarus and an interlocutor explore how people’s definitions of success and mediocrity are fundamentally shaped by the range of role models and information they are exposed to. Lazarus argues that what one perceives as average is merely the peak of someone with a narrower exposure, and that success is a relative concept tied to class and social strata. He emphasizes that individuals tend to settle for what they see modeled, that teachers and peers at one’s current level cannot propel one beyond that level, and that true upward mobility—such as achieving what one’s parents could not—marks a shift in perceived success. The dialogue also touches on the psychological tendency to become defensive when confronted with uncomfortable truths, suggesting that focusing on one’s own journey is more productive than arguing with those who are triggered by these insights.

Chapters

Why do people settle for being average? Yeah, everybody settled for what they have been exposed to. You cannot have drive in a direction where you have no models. True, true. Your definition of success will be to the degree that you become like the most successful around you. Even if the most successful is riding bike, very successful. So What you call mediocrity is what someone else calls success. So the subject of mediocrity is relative to exposure. You identify something as average because you've seen something more. To the person who has not seen something more, that's the peak. And what you call peak for you is another person's average.
Yes.
So one way or the other, We are all mediocre in the things that we have not seen.
This will offend a few people, but that's so true.
The ability to be triggered by the truth is one of the most evidential traits of a mind that have settled for average. You don't argue with those who are triggered. Focus on your journey. So what I'm saying is that if I ask you to define what success is to you. How will you define it? What's success to you? What is it that you will have? At what point will you look at yourself and say you are successful? When you look at me, do you feel I'm successful?
Yes.
When I look at me, I don't feel I'm successful. The danger of that conclusion is that whoever you look at and conclude is a model of success. Once you get to that point, there is a natural tendency for you to settle.
Yeah.
As to whether or not the person feels he is a success depends on what the person has seen also. So what I'm saying is one person's peak is another person's base. One person's mediocrity is another person's success. One person's success is another person's mediocrity.
Sure.
At the end of the day, the success in the lowest class will be when he enters the middle class.
And he pleaches there.
The moment you can do what your dad didn't do, won't you say you're successful?
Hmm, okay.
The moment I can do what my dad didn't do, will I not say I'm successful? It's a class thing, it's a strata thing. Every information you receive from those who are at your level will not take you beyond the level. If it will take you beyond the level, they will not be on your level.
Wow.
It is important that we have teachers, but if your teacher in school knows more about success than your teacher— my God. Now that can be an argument on its own.
Yeah.
And there are people that will come for this conversation and say it's not about success, it's not about being great. A child of a great man will not say it's not about being great. The reason why you say it's not about being great is a