Love me or hate me, it's one or the other. Always has been. Hate my game, my swagger. Hate my fadeaway, my hunger. Hate that I'm a veteran. A champion. Hate that. Hate it with all your heart. And hate that I'm loved, for the exact same reasons.
Remember that once you have experienced excellence, you will never again be content with mediocrity.
Launch out into the deep. Don't live in the shallows. Live it in the deep waters. Grasp every enobling experience that is available to you. Embrace every dimension of living that challenges you, that educates you, that elevates you. Live for purposes greater than yourself.
Every man knows that in his work he does best and accomplishes most when he has attained a proficiency that enables him to work intuitively. That is, there are things which we come to know so well that we do not know how we know them.
Pressure is a privilege — it only comes to those who earn it.
Getting an entire group to excel is worth any number of offended peers. Maybe it is best simply to accept the fact that excellence upsets some people. It always has and always will. Live with it.
Anything done at a high level of excellence always intrigues me because it's the ultimate expression of being human, that you do something, something you don't have to do.
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.
He [Eddie Rickenbacker] called his pilots together and explained just what he expected of them. He also told them the most important thing he had learned as a racecar driver. "Take care of your engines. Study them until you know just how much they can do and don't stop short of that point."
Sometimes excellence has come to mean a narrow focus on a single quality. A solitary virtue is a very lonely, austere reality. Godly virtues travel with companions...The focus on a single virtue to the exclusion of others can be very dangerous.
So often, we assume that excellence requires a monumental effort and that our lofty goals demand incredible doses of willpower and motivation. But really, all we need is dedication to small, manageable tasks. Mastery follows consistency.
Why Greatness? … First, I believe it is no harder to build something great than to build something good. It might be statistically more rare to reach greatness, but it does not require more suffering than perpetuating mediocrity. Indeed, if some of the comparison companies in our study are any indication, it involves less suffering, and perhaps even less work. If it is no harder (given these ideas), the results better, and the process so much more fun - well, why wouldn't you go for greatness? … But there is a second answer to the question of why greatness, one that is at the very heart of what motivated us to undertake this huge project in the first place: the search for meaning, or more precisely, the search for meaningful work. If you're doing something you care that much about, and you believe in its purpose deeply enough, then it is impossible to imagine not trying to make it great.
If you have to ask the question, "Why should we try to make it great? Isn't success enough?" then you're probably engaged in the wrong line of work.
When all the pieces come together, not only does your work move toward greatness, but so does your life. For, in the end, it is impossible to have a great life unless it is a meaningful life. And it is very difficult to have a meaningful life without meaningful work.
When I cook, I'm not gonna lie to you, I'm very selfish, me and my team. We need to please ourselves. We need to make sure that we are convince of what we are doing and eating and that we see ourselves in that dish we are creating. If I don't please myself, it's impossible I will be able to please you...
What I'm doing right now, I'm chasing perfection.
I think that game is a testament to what happens when you put no ceiling to what you're capable of doing.
Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we subconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
The ladder of success is never crowded at the top.
I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.
Indifference is the revenge the world takes on mediocrities.
You were born with wings. Why prefer to crawl through life?
In every one of us there are two ruling and directing principles, whose guidance we follow wherever they may lead; the one being an innate desire of pleasure; the other, an acquired judgment which aspires after excellence.
I first saw Jim speak when I was 17, and he introduced me to a new way of thinking. He taught me that if you want anything to change, you must change. If you want things to get better, you’ve got to get better. And that the secret of life is working harder on myself than on the job, or a specific skill, or anything else. Jim taught me that as soon as I committed myself to excellence, I would really have something to give others.
...there is a basic tendency in the development of the human personality toward self-fulfillment, or self-actualization. This implies that as an individual matures, they want to be given more responsibility, broader horizons, and the opportunity to develop their personal potential. This process is interrupted whenever a person's environment fails to encourage and nurture these desires.
People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents.
We are what repeatedly do, Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.
Attempt the impossible in order to improve your work.
“Be the kind of person who can be relied on to gets things done. To exceed the average you must do what the average individual will not. Build your faith, seek the impossible, have a passion for excellence, be much better than average and keep trying harder, smarter and be more efficient each day.”
Nobody who ever gave his best regretted it.
One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.
Excellence is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.
There's a choice that we have to make as people, as individuals. If you want to be great at something, there's a choice you have to make. We all can be masters at our craft, but you have to make a choice. What I mean by that is, there are inherent sacrifices that come along with that. Family time, hanging out with friends, being a great friend, being a great son, nephew, whatever the case may be. There are sacrifices that come along with making that decision.
Each moment of my life I was dreaming of how great I could be, and continued working hard. Each time I closed my eyes I could see me shining bright like a sun.
What I'm doing right now, I'm chasing perfection... and if I don't get it, I'm going to get this close.
What does perfection look like to me? Championship rings.
If we settle for mediocrity in the little things, we usually end up settling for mediocrity in the big things.
It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.
Love me or hate me, it's one or the other. Always has been. Hate my game, my swagger. Hate my fadeaway, my hunger. Hate that I'm a veteran. A champion. Hate that. Hate it with all your heart. And hate that I'm loved, for the exact same reasons.
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