So you’re good but you want to be great. Is that a complex process with a multitude of factors or is it much simpler than that? Let’s answer that question and give you 3 concrete ways you can go from good to great.
Defining Good and Great
Good is:
- Satisfactory
- Enough
- Sufficient
You can go to work, clock in, do your job, clock out, go home, and not get fired. It’s doing the minimum of what’s required of you. Greatness is consistent excellence. When you can consistently deliver at high levels, that is greatness. And that is what every entrepreneur and professional business person does, who is at the top of their game.
What Separates Good from Great?
Albert Grey said,
“The common dominator of success, the one thing that separates successful people from unsuccessful people lies in the fact that successful people form the habit of doing things that unsuccessful people don’t like to do.”
Now the interesting thing is what unsuccessful people don’t like to do are the same things that you and I and everyone don’t like to do!
Who likes to apologize when they’re wrong? Who likes to put themselves out there and take a risk when you can face criticism? Who likes to be the first or only person to support a project and take responsibility for the results? Very few people. Who does it consistently? Successful people.
So what does that look like, going from good to great?
We’re going to give you three concrete examples from the team here at Lead With Words. These are things that we’ve actually implemented and we’ve seen work for us.
Concrete Examples
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Send Handwritten Letters
Think about it, every day 200 billion emails get sent. 200 billion every day! How many of those emails never get read? How many of your emails do you just skip, delete, block, or never open?
In the last year, how many handwritten letters have you sent or received? And I’m not talking about the obligatory Happy Birthday Merry Christmas letters you have to write and send to friends and family.
You see, you can’t touch or taste electrons with current technology. But a thin slice of a dead tree? You can lay hold of that! That’s just one way that handwritten letters are awesome. It’s one of those things that it’s easy to do and it’s easy to not do. It’s kind of like flossing your teeth. Besides dentists, who’s passionate about flossing their teeth? But in the world of dental health what separates good and great is flossing.
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Get up Consistently Early
If you want to be great, you have to find more time. And the best way to do that is to get up early. At Lead With Words, our team mutually agreed to get up every day at 5:30 am. It’s not easy. But it’s one way we are finding our edge. Sometimes you’ll be out at a networking event or a social event and you’ll leave earlier than a lot of people. But we know that in the long run, that’s what leads to success.
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Establish a rhythm of regular review.
At Lead with Words, we deliver presentation training to multinational companies. After every training, we have a formal process of review where we look at what went well, what didn’t go so well, and how we can improve it for the next iteration.
Our first programs were good. After we established this rhythm of regular review, our programs got better and better. And we received lots of positive feedback from our clients.
So I want to encourage you to establish a rhythm of regular review, and you’ll be on the road to greatness. So there you have it. Three concrete ways for you to go from good to great; send handwritten notes, get up consistently early, and establish that rhythm of regular review.
At first, it may seem tedious or boring or difficult, but in the end, it’s a price worth paying.