Excellence lies in effort:

Excellence lies in effort.

That was the slogan for the basketball program I was part of growing up.

Elite Camps baby (side note: shout out to Rudy and Ben for teaching me so much. Thank you guys. You changed my life more than you know)

It’s not until you put in a ton of work do you realize how much insight is in that quote.

Being excellent is just doing things over and over again.

That’s it.

That’s the secret to being great.

But that means failure.

A lot of it.

A lot of hours in silence with your mind.

Pushing through that self-doubt that never gets easier to handle.

It probably gets worse as you get more successful.

Because how can you live up to something in the past, especially if it could be your best work?

You can’t, but you don’t have to.

You don’t have to live up to anyone’s expectations more than your own.

Determine what success means to you and achieve that.

When I started writing publicly at the beginning of this year, it was literally to create 100 blog posts this year.

I’m going to get to 500 by year end.

That’s success.

If every single person on planet earth hated what I had to say, it doesn’t matter.

I’ve already been successful.

Sure it would be nice to have other people validate what you’re doing and provide helpful feedback, but you’re not going to please everyone.

Their opinion is one opinion but it should never be higher than yours.

You don’t need anyone’s approval.

You just need to do the work.

The outcomes will come when you focus on doing the work.

But you have to work for many years, possibly decades with no payoff.

My journey started when I left university and even though it’s been almost 4 years, it’s just began.

I haven’t even scratched the surface.

There’s more to learn, more to experience, more to write about.

I hope I get a long fulfilled life. I really do.

But I also know that life can change at any moment.

So you might as well make it the best version you can while you’re here.

To do that, you’re going to have to make an effort.

Be excellent at whatever you want to be.

Put in the work because excellence lies in effort.