Demystifying Excellence:
Insight #2 — Apply Your Time & Focus
 

Insight #2: The most important step every day on the road to excellence is getting on the road to excellence every day. This sounds obvious, but in times of trouble, it’s not, because of our natural fear of failure. The distance between myself and excellence seemed insurmountable until I realized that excellence was not a destination, but a direction. Excellence is not a destination. It is a direction. It is an endless journey, and you never reach the point of perfection, and that is precisely what makes it so inspiring, because those on the road to excellence are always getting better. Enjoy the ride.
 

This insight largely materialized from a question I kept asking myself: Why was my brother an inspiration to me?
 

It wasn’t because of his specific accomplishments. They impressed me. No, what inspired me was this: When my teenage brother learned he was going to die, he changed… almost nothing in his life. He did the same things he always did. He fed his deep intellectual curiosity at school with the same dedication to adventure, he wrote software programs teenagers aren’t supposed to be smart enough to write, he socialized and created witty diversions with his geeky brainiac friends, and he spent time learning and playing with me, his little brother and best buddy. There was no big rush to do all the things he’d always wanted to do in life. He was already doing what he wanted to do.
 

I realized that, as long as I could remember, Tracey always had the confidence and wisdom to take steps in the directions of his passions, every day. Never, in all my days, will I forget that lesson. If you build your life around the the things that you are passionate about, and strive toward excellence in those areas, then when things get really tough, you’ll still have some semblance of peace about your life. You’ll still have your compass when the ship is sinking.
 

I’m not as good a singer as Ella Fitzgerald was. I’m not as good a coach as Jürgen Klinsmann. I’m not as good looking as those guys from The Wiggles. (Okay, that’s a lie, but I’m trying to make a point here.) But when you put the combination of everything I do together, it’s something unique that I’m proud of, and something few others could accomplish. And I can tell you, with all sincerity, that I am getting better at what I do all the time. I have many rewarding moments of excellence, I have many humbling moments of failure, and I go to bed knowing I never hold back for fear of inadequacy.
 

I never spend a week in which I don’t pursue all five of my cornerstones.
 
Read the next Chapter -> Insight #3 — Be Confident.
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