The Elusive Climb to Excellence

I was asked by someone recently at a podcast to speak on excellence and my immediate response was I do not know what that means. My host looked surprised and said, "Really! Then how do you measure your goal and performance?"

This was my reply. I do not know what excellence means because excellence is what others say when they see something that wows them. It's an interpretation. A judgment. An opinion. When I am performing what I do best I am never focusing on excellence. My focus is simply on my actions with passion and discipline and in alignment with my vision and purpose. Somedays others see my work and declare that it is excellent. On other days they don't. In either case, the presence or absence of this ephemeral entity excellence is entirely in the eye of the beholder. My own experience on both days is only passion, discipline, vision, and purpose.

I once said to a student interning at my clinic. "It is the greatest blessing in the universe to have your being possessed by a vision and driven by a purpose. And when it is so, then your life is no longer a series of sunrises and sunsets and a long stretch of days and nights. Instead, it becomes one uninterrupted blaze of light, hope, and joy.