This post should've been up Monday but after that day's training I was so tired and sleepy that I went right to bed when I got home, 1530 I think. I woke up 3 in the morning the next day, right on time not to be late for the 5am start. The half-day sleep was brought on by getting home at ten pm sunday. I have this thing where once I started sleeping, I wouldn't be able to wake up until at least 7 hours later. Maybe a knock to the head would do it, but an alarm clock can't.
So, all throughout the day I was fighting the sweet allure of sleep. Coffee can only do so much. It was mostly orientations, with the company and its policies and stuff.
The part I remember clearly was about excellence. The trainer was illustrating the company's vision of being excellent in its field. He drew a middle line representing average, or the worse term, mediocre. He said if the company is achieving enough of its goals to satisfy its customers, then it was performing at right about that line.
Then he asked if we knew the arguably all-time greatest player in basketball. Michael Jordan, we said. He asked what records does this guy have that makes him the best. Did he score the most points? Did he have the most three-pointers? Was he the best free-pointer? Shot-blocker? Defender? Well, no. But he was so good at all of those things that his well-roundedness just outdoes everybody else's. He could carry his team because he can do everything.
When he started he was good offensively, but not defensively. What he did was take all his weaknesses and shore them up. Improve them. When he has reached a certain level of skill, he would raise the bar higher and work up to that right away. Keeping that up made his game so good that he is now regarded to be the best there ever was. He was excellent.
It was that striving to improve oneself, that drive to be even better when you're already very good, that characterizes excellence. Meeting everyone's expectations, reaching that average/mediocre line, can't be good enough. To be excellent is to climb ever higher above that line, never being satisfied with what has already been achieved.
I found out I wasn't excellent. Never was. Never had that hunger to be better. I did just enough to get by, to be good, then I'd leave it at that. Complacent. I know I'm real good at a lot of stuff than most, but I never work at it more than is needed.
Wish I can say, I'm everything but ordinary. I could, but I'd be lying. Momma said liars go to hell. I don't wish to stay longer.
From: Toy Kingdom
About me: I am the Chronic Procrastinator. If there is something urgent needed to be done now, it can wait until next week.
