3 Key Aspects to Personal Excellence
How many of you reading this can love to be downgraded and mistreated? What about being happy with a substandard service? Would you give someone a task expecting nothing but the best and you put up with an average result that gets to be delivered?
I bet none of you answered in the affirmative. We all desire to be excellent in our endeavors and expect excellence in equal measure from others. The challenge becomes how to achieve that excellence on a personal level. And that is what I will address today.
Let me tell you a little story I read somewhere to help me elaborate on the three key aspects of personal excellence. The story is about a certain woman. We will call her Kelly. Kelly was born in Ireland but later moved to the United States of America.
There, she worked hard and in line with the American dream, she became successful as a salesperson. Through hard work, she rose the ranks before exiting to found her sales consultancy firm. She had grown up seeing her uncle driving a very sleek Mercedes Benz and desired to own one someday.
Now that she was successful in her own business, and had made enough money, she decided to go and purchase the car of her dreams from a dealership shop in her locality. She walked in with her husband and friend to inspect the car that she dreamed of owning. Right in that shop was a sales guy who didn’t bother to go and attend to them.
As circumstances would later force, Kelly had to seek the attention of the sales guy who came to their aid but asked that they consider a cheaper option in place of the car they went looking for. On asking that they go for a test drive with the car that they wanted, the salesman denied them because, at the back of his head, they couldn’t afford it.
It took the intervention of Kelly’s husband to have a friend connect them with the manager of the dealership shop for them to purchase the car they so much wanted. On the day they went to pick it up, the salesman was surprised that they had bought the expensive brand-new Mercedes Benz.
What that meant was that the salesman had lost his hefty commissions. Simply put, a lack of personal excellence cost him a big deal. What could he have done right that he didn’t?
Respect is king.
The salesman didn’t have respect. He had a lot of prejudgments in his mind whereby he often judged people based on how they looked. Had he shown Kelly and her husband respect by welcoming them in warmly and taking them through the cars in the shop and especially one of their interest, he could have earned himself a huge commission.
So, always remember that personal excellence is anchored on the pillar of respect. Respect every person that you come across in your journey of life. Serve them well. It doesn’t matter if it is a small job that you have, just put in your very best and success will follow you in whichever form it may come.
It is often said that you don’t have to chase money. You simply attain excellence and the money will come chasing you, pants down. In other words, invest in excellence and the rest will follow without much struggle.
Be grateful and cheer up.
Be joyful, be happy. Looking at the salesman keenly, it seems he wasn’t contented with his work. The passion that needs to spring out of us, because we love what we do, was missing in this man. As you could be aware, joy, smile and laughter are three contagious things. They often light up our world.
To achieve personal excellence, we must cheer up. To attract positive thoughts and ideas, we must be grateful. Being grateful for the small wins begins to prepare us for bigger ones. It also cultivates in us the desire to achieve more and do more.
There is no confident man I know who wasn’t so sure of his capabilities. When you know that you are excellent at what you do, nothing stresses you up because you are always sure that you will deliver once called upon. And that cheers you up instead of wearing you down with stress and anxiety.
Set yourself big goals and start thinking like a winner.
At this point, I ask myself if the salesman had set himself big goals in terms of commission earning because had he done so, he would have jumped on any single opportunity however small or big it seemed to be to attain his targets.
To achieve personal excellence, set yourself big goals and when you do so, don’t be thinking small. See yourself as a winner and a champion. Seeing yourself a champion gives you that feeling of winning always which compels you to go after opportunities as soon as you smell them.
Excellence is achieved. Excellence is earned. Achieving and earning are products of setting goals and targets and meeting them. It also means winning in a contest. Thus, to win begins with one seeing themselves as a champion and winner first before working themselves out to be one in reality. There is a lot of power in attitude and mindset.
You can implement these three principles and see what comes of you. Most importantly, I hope these three components set you on your journey toward achieving personal excellence.