What If Ordinary is the Real Extraordinary?

Since preschool, we’ve heard some version of: she’s doing okay, but there are a few things worth watching.

In response, we’ve done what most parents do when someone raises a concern: we ask the ‘bots what to do. Then we ask the real people what to do. And then we set out to do all the things.

Evaluations. Extra support. More evaluations.

Most recently, we went through the process of determining whether she qualified for additional support through school.

And after all of that?

She’s somewhere in the middle.

Not struggling enough to qualify for additional support. Not excelling enough for anyone to stop and take notice.

So the question remains: is she a struggling student… or is she simply, for now, at the bottom of the middle — what we might otherwise call ordinary?

I’m okay with this. (Speaking as a straight-A student who experienced the false promises of success that can come with it.)

What I’m not okay with is the growing awareness — and discomfort — that we live in a world where “ordinary” can so easily feel like a problem to solve, while the everyday middle receives little support and even less patience. 

So much of what surrounds us seems designed to reward the extremes while overlooking everything in between.

But what if we valued ordinary — not as a place you land by default, but a choice you make with intention?

For our daughter, that looks like this:

We’re not pushing her toward something that isn’t her.

We leave room for play, even when another round of math facts would feel “productive.”

We resist the instinct to add more — more activities, more structure, more pressure — simply because we can.

In that way, ordinary stops looking like a lack of effort… and starts to look more like paying attention.

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And the more I sit with it, the more I notice how often we overlook the middle elsewhere, too. Including in marketing.

Most marketing systems are built to measure clicks and impressions, to chase visibility, and to optimize for reach.

But the businesses I spend my time with — the ones built on decades of trust and steady growth — didn’t grow because of extreme reach.

They grew because of ordinary relationships. The steady clients. The long conversations. The quiet trust that compounds over time.

And yet, most marketing systems aren’t designed to measure connection, let alone support it.

They reward the visible, not the meaningful. The spike, not the steady.

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As a mom, I’m realizing that my daughter’s education isn’t a set-it-and-forget-it endeavor.

What works now may not work next year.

What she needs will evolve.

What support looks like will likely fall outside of any predefined system — or any neat, prebuilt plan.

And as someone who loves a good plan (with contingencies), that reality is deeply uncomfortable.

But it’s also clarifying.

Maybe the goal isn’t to force ourselves — or our businesses — into systems that were never designed to support us.

Maybe the goal is to build better ones.

Ones that recognize, honor, and build on what’s already happening in the ordinary, everyday middle.

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