eBusiness Weekly
Arthur Marara
“It is a wretched taste to be gratified with mediocrity when the excellent lies before us.” (Isaac Disraeli). The way you present yourself as a company or as an individual can either create or destroy opportunities. You can do a lot of work in marketing yourself and your brand, but if you do not augment whatever you claim to stand for with excellence, you will find yourself again at the drawing board. Excellence is the ability to surpass the norm or ordinary standards.
There is an ordinary way of doings, but when you harness the standard of excellence, you do things in an extra-ordinary way. Do not just desire to succeed, desire to excel in whatever you will be doing. Excellence is an attribute that will distinguish you from the rest. In fact, it distinguishes leaders from followers.
You need to desire to raise your standards as an individual or as an organisation. The standards that you operate with determine the type of clients you attract, and the type of money you make as well. There is no one who is attracted to companies that appear to have a patent or copyright over mediocrity, neither is there any employer who wants to be associated with employees who are just concerned about rendering service without paying heed to the manner in which the service is being rendered.
Clients always deserve the best when you are dealing with them. Break the cycle of mediocrity in your life and replace it with a standard of excellence. The starting point in creating excellent organisations is in creating excellent individuals.
Excellence is a decision
We are a product of the decisions that we make. You can choose to live a life of excellence or a life of mediocrity. Discipline yourself to surpass mediocrity and do things differently. It has often been said that you can take a donkey to the river but you cannot force it to drink water. You can get all the motivation and literature on excellence, all but if you do not make a decision to practice excellence, you will always be in the same position.
Desire and have the drive to improve yourself. Always look for opportunities to improve yourself, your service delivery, your deportment and so on. If you do not choose a life of excellence, no one will do that for you.
“The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavour.” (Vince Lombardi)
Practice excellence
You do not become excellent in your service by having the word, “excellence” as one of your core values and written all over the place. You practice and live it. Wishing does not take you anywhere, but action does. What you practice daily becomes a part of you. Your life will not change in a day, but it will be changed by what you do daily. Condition yourself to doing things differently daily.
Those who negate excellence will depend on those who uphold it. You want to be a leader in your field, practice excellence. You want to stand out in your studies, practice excellence.
“Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” (Aristotle)
Size does not matter
No task is too small for excellence. Your touch of distinction should be visible where ever you touch. The manner you treat your clients, deal with your family, write your assignments, write your letters, and, make your presentations should exhibit excellence. Your faithfulness in serving where you are, will determine the faithfulness you will serve with in positions of higher and better responsibility. If you want excellence in your own business, practice excellence whilst conducting business for other people.
Lewis Latimer (I once discussed him in detail in one of my articles) , one of the leading black inventors in history rose from being an office cleaner, to becoming a serious draftsperson in America during a period of intense racism. His formula was to practice excellence in everything he did. He impressed his employers and they had to elevate him from being just a cleaner to a draftsperson.
“If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters. Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude.” (Charles R. Swindoll)
Excellence from the inside out
People have been so much accustomed to working their lives from the outside in. This does not take you far. Work your life from the inside out. What is on the outside should be a reflection of what is in the inside. Excellence should therefore come from within.
Arthur Marara is a corporate law attorney. Follow him on social media,/ +263718867255/email [email protected]
