Riding a Wave of Excellence

This journey is not for the faint of heart. The journey of excellence is a thrilling experience that requires hard work, determination, and commitment. There will be ups and downs, and some of those downs will be way down. But there will also be great heights, and some of these heights make all the sacrifice worth the journey.

Excellence starts with clarity, with a clear vision of a pathway of greatness that you want to follow. You cannot have excellence without clear goals, without parameters and guideposts to mark progress and identify when you might reach it. But excellence is never static, it can never be fully achieved because it will, by its very nature, you continue to identify new paths and objectives along the way.

?Excellence builds upon itself and continues to develop and expand. It is a matter of iteration. Iteration means taking what you learn (from both success and/or failure) and leveraging it for the next cycle. Iteration means building upon itself. It tells a story based upon each success and failure. It is rewarding to look back and see how far you have come.

?This is where the analogy of a wave is so telling. Excellence begins in depths and builds with pressure and external forces. It pushes across a seemingly quiet surface as it builds power and momentum. Wave after wave, each one a little different and unique move forward to hit upon the shore, its destination. Each one builds, moving with increasing power, and then crashes, only to be followed by another, and another, and another

?Excellence is portrayed as a surfer, twisting and turning to take advantage of the unique characteristics of each wave. It takes great patience to be a good surfer, knowing how to paddle out through the surf, riding and reading the water’s surface until just the right time to “catch” a wave and ride it into the shore.

Striving for excellence is a pursuit that can transform the average situation into extraordinary and the mundane into the magnificent. Excellence is not the end that we seek, but a continuous journey. It involves personal development, singular dedication, and a mindset to transcend the ordinary. The journey is paved with trials, learning, and a commitment to personal growth. Any less commitment and you will not find the excellence you seek.

But why put in this level of effort?

Because unlike perfection, excellence is an obtainable goal. Excellence is about doing your best, consistently improving, and embracing the learning process. It doesn’t demand unwavering flawlessness but encourages you to make mistakes and, crucially, learn from them. Even professional suffers fall every once in a while, but when they catch that perfect wave, that set of circumstances where everything just comes together - there is a perfection that you can not feel anyway else.