Excellence

Excellence combines mastery and mattering (Thanks Brad Stulberg). Excellence is not only available to a few. I believe it’s available to everyone – it’s part of our birthright as humans. Many will not attain it, everyone has the opportunity.

Mastery is growth in a particular skillset. Can be done with the right amount of sweat regardless of enjoyment or meaning. You could become a master bricklayer, engineer, etc, and never hit the mattering part of the equation. There may be a certain amount of satisfaction in there for a job well done, but also a lot of meaningless suffering.

The mattering part is having a sense that what you are doing has significance and meaning, to you at the very least. I also believe a part of it is that it must hit your unique song – what you were born to play. Your encodings, as Jim Collins would say. Doesn’t mean we have only one song we can play, it does mean, I believe, that we have a limited number of chords that when struck reverberate deep within us and feel right.

It takes time to find those chords, and often a lot of doing until we find what we’re drawn to. We can then calibrate the work we do to line up with those chords, with that song. Then the work ethic (climbing up mastery mountain) combined with the mattering equals magic. Excellence is found both in the arrival and even more importantly, the journey. That’s OPUS, and that’s a lot of satisfaction AND joy.