"It is simply a
truism that nothing very valuable can come without significant sacrifice and
effort and patience on our part." -- Elder Jeffrey R. Holland
This week I have learned to understand Excellence. Yes, that
capital “E” is intentional. Excellence is one of those qualities that can be
difficult to define, because what is excellent for me may not be excellent for
somebody else. To re-work an old adage, “one
man’s mediocrity is another man’s excellence”.
The themes of mastery and excellence come together to
form a more complete picture of our entrepreneurial journey. These concepts intertwine
with each other and combine to make a wonderful life. I now understand more
fully that my journey requires two things (at least): commitment and a vision.
Commitment is
best expressed as a combination of the quote from Elder Holland and this quote
from Tom Peters, who is quoting the founder of IBM: "A while back, I came across a line attributed to IBM founder Thomas
Watson. If you want to achieve excellence, he said, you can get there today. As
of this second, quit doing less-than-excellent work." At first this
idea seems to conflict with the insight from Elder Holland. Only when we
understand excellence as a journey,
and not a destination, do we begin to
understand how daily commitment to excellence (or any other virtue) gives us a
life of meaning.
A vision provides
the daily fuel necessary to sustain our journey through darkness, difficulty
and despair. But not just any vision will do. It must be clear in our minds and
grand enough to keep us rising each time we fall.
This journey will be long. Rome was not built in a day, as
the saying goes. But with a vision to inspire us, and commitment to the
journey, success is only one more step away.
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