Larry Ellison put that right
I want to make things people envy of. I want high visibility. I want awesome. Awesome is an incredibly high standard, impossible to achieve, like perfection. Life is too short for being risk averse and anything but awesome.
I had a chat last night with a friend. We should have talked some time ago. Made me realise that if you want that perfection, you’ll going to be judged not by 99% of the effort but the remaining 1% impossible you’re striving for but never actually achieve. If you say you want the absolute best some people will join you but most will sit back and enjoy you failing.
You might be right 99% of the time (I appreciate his high mark, but no one possibly can be right around that mark) but he also said that it means that lot of those who sit back and will just watch and judge you by your high expectations and will keep you accountable for the missing 1% to cal you a failure. If you do it in steps and get closer one step at a time they will tell you many times you were wrong for even trying. And he was right — some people do that.
If you put a bar high enough by wanting to get things done quicker or whatever way better, people who are not comfortable with that are going to perceive you as arrogant. With every step you will push harder and reach closer to the level you want to be, but if you don’t hit the high bar the first time then you’re goint to be perceived just that – an arrogant. But there’s where me and my friend differ. I feel you should always question and never settle with the bar being an inch lower.
Larry Ellison put that right:
When you’re the first person whose beliefs are different from what everyone else believes, you’re basically saying, “I’m right, and everyone else is wrong.” That’s a very unpleasant position to be in. It’s at once exhilarating and at the same time an invitation to be attacked.
It’s all about relationships so some people will jump on the journey with you and some other will attack you for pushing or even daring. This challenge will either motivate you or get you killed. Happened to me both ways this year. Had plenty of people who questioned, said it’s impossible, called me a fool, quit or stabbed in the back and our ways parted eventually. Had also plenty of other who subscribed, followed and were with me at the finish line with the right stuff, right time, delivered against all the odds.
It is however a risk worth taking: never ever settle with what you’re comfortable with, never leave early, never let it go just to keep everyone comfortable. The drive to perfection, to the “one more thing” is the right path with the right people. Provided you’ve got the moral backbone of right and wrong It’s always better to regret things you have done than regret things you haven’t done.
People who just deliver some good stuff some time between receiving paychecks will hate your guts. On the opposite line those who are hungry for much more and deliver great stuff no matter time of a day or day of the week will say “thank you” at the end of the process, even if it was really hard to get there. With right beliefs you will land with “awesome” with the right people, right stuff delivered and that’s all what matters.
Point is: awesome is the enemy of just okay and to be “awesome” you have to question the “just okay” all the time. Nobody cares about “just okay” — nobody even will notice that effort. At the end of the day no one cares about what you excuse is: choice of beliefs, choice of people or whatever your excuse might be. Either you choose right and deliver awesome or you don’t deliver enough for people to even care about.