Perfection

You are given a sequence of positive integers $A_1, A_2, \ldots, A_N$. You should make all its elements equal by performing a sequence of operations. In one operation, you may choose any contiguous subsequence $A_l, A_{l+1}, \ldots, A_r$ such that for each $i$ ($l+1 \le i \le r$), $A_i = A_l$, i.e. a sequence of identical elements, then choose any integer $x \lt A_l$, and for each $i$ ($l \le i