What if you are focusing all your time and effort serving/helping one or two people?  Admirable?  Yes.  Productive? Maybe.  The best you can do?  Absolutely not.  Staying within our comfort zone often means serving only those within our ‘circle’.  That is only fine if you are some kind of maniac and we as the general populus don’t want you to mess with us anyway.  Here is the thing though, what if by stepping outside of serving just a few you could serve many?

Someone once told me an expert is anyone that lives at least fifty miles outside of the area.  This is funny because it is sadly true.  We often are not valued, regardless of our outstanding skill level by those in our immediate area.  I’m guilty of this.  I currently live in the small rural town I grew up in and often look and someone in their high school context.  Sometimes it is justified, sometimes it is not and at that moment I know I need to not do that.

Why is it so many of us have outstanding resources around us we fail to see, or worse yet see and fail to utilize?  I believe it is a case of looking at the bugs on the windshield rather than the road ahead.  Did I just infer those around you are looking at you like a bug?  Why yes I did.  And this is why it is tremendously important to set your vision on a level that rises above and radiates outside of your comfort zone.  Failure to do so results in frustration, be it mental, physical and/or financial.

Let me be the first to put my money where my mouth is.  I have, but will focus much more on serving in a larger capacity.  I will extend my reach, even when it is uncomfortable and makes me nervous (which I call excited since nervous and excited feel the same.)  I will reach not a local audience, although they are welcome to pay for my brilliance, but a national audience.  And I am willing to reach out through speaking, working and writing.  I will have a book on the NYT best sellers list.  Will this happen by tomorrow, in part yes.  Some will take some time.  But I promise you this, if you do not move forward, regardless there will be movement, unfortunately it will be backwards. 

Go ahead move to a larger arena.  And get out your calender and mark it.  My book will be on the NYT best seller list in a couple of years.