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There is a stark realization that mediocrity no longer sells.
Hence companies and individuals alike are obsessed with achieving excellence.
Many of the people that chase after excellence with unrelenting passion will indeed achieve excellence.
When the standards were generally mediocre or down right poor excellence was a competitive advantage.
A competitive advantage can be simply defined as a quality that sets you apart and puts you at an advantage when compared to your competition.
It gives you better profits than your competitors, and it also makes you the person or organization of choice in the minds of potential clients or suitors.
When excellence was a rarity, it was indeed a competitive advantage.
However, because excellence is increasingly becoming commonplace it is no longer sufficient to guarantee success.
In every field of human endeavor many people are indeed achieving excellence.
In golf Tiger Woods is an excellent golfer, but he is not the only one.
In tennis Roger Federer is an excellent sportsperson but he is no longer the invincible number one.
The BMW is a great car but it was not the best selling car last year.
The Swiss are have a reputation of making great watches, but others have already overtaken them.
The world is replete with examples of people and organizations that have achieved excellence but have failed to capture sustained success.
What is the problem? Excellence is good but it is not good enough.
Excellence is not an enemy of progress, but it will also not set you apart.
To make it in this century you will need to be both excellent and different.
When there is excellence galore on offer it is the one who differentiates oneself who will catch the eye.
This is true for every aspect of life.
It is true for the individual and also true for organizations.
Snow is known to be white in color therefore on a snowy day there is nothing special about white ice flak.
However, it is the purple ice flak that will catch the eye.
The great question of our generation is how can one become purple ice flak.
Put differently, the question is how can one become the special one among the gathering of the excellent people.
There are some characteristics that help distinguish the outstanding performers from the excellent performers.
Here are just a few.
PASSION Many people can produce performances that are par excellence, but few combine both passion and excellence in the same performance.
Excellence comes from applying your muscles, limbs and brains into an assignment.
However, the remarkable performers are those that also bring their hearts to the performance.
It was Martin Luther King Jr who said, "Whatever you do, do it so well that the hosts of heaven will stand and say, there is a person who does his job well".
The differentiated performers do not just do their jobs well, but they do it as if they are possessed.
It is difficult if not impossible to be differentiated without putting all of your heart into what you do.
The passionate people are literally on fire.
John Wesley was the founder of what is now known as the Methodist Church.
Centuries ago Wesley had the unique reputation of gathering large crowds to his sermons.
Wesley was excommunicated from the Anglican church and forced to preach in open fields because he did not have any buildings of his own.
However, in spite of all the inherent disadvantages Wesley became the most outstanding preacher of his time.
One day he was asked for his secret for success.
His answer was simple, "I simply set myself on fire, and people come to watch me burn.
" He was not only a good orator but he was an orator on fire.
Undiluted passion always has a way of setting you apart from the rest of the crowd.
Whatever you do perform as if your life depends on it because over the long haul the quality of your life will be determined by the quality of your performances.
APPLY THE FINISHING TOUCH When carpenters are done with making a piece of furniture they apply what they call the finishing touch.
They keep polishing and polishing it until you can literally see your face in it.
To the carpenter the job of making the piece is never finished until it is carried out of the show room.
If you visit shops where they sell furniture you will notice that everyday they apply some vanish to the furniture More often than not the difference between an excellent piece and a distinguished one is in the details.
This is true for everything we do in life.
The detail in the finishing touches makes the difference between the excellent and the differentiated.
Tiger Woods is an excellent golfer but he has had to reinvent his swing at least two times.
Essentially he is refining and polishing his art.
Every skill and every performance in life can be and should be refined and polished.
The most important thing to bear in mind is that it does no matter how good you are or how good you become you can always be better.
GO FOR THE BAKER'S DOZEN In the medieval period in England bakers were notorious for cheating their clients.
When a client ordered a dozen loaves they would commonly supply fewer than twelve.
To counteract this malpractice a law was passed which punished the cheating bakers by chopping off their hands.
Whether it was by mistake or by design every baker who supplied less than what had been ordered and paid for had his hand chopped off.
For fear of having their hands chopped off and also in a bid to differentiate themselves the wise bakers started to supply at least one extra loaf with every order.
From the bakers we learn this important lesson-It does not matter what your trade is you can differentiate yourself by doing and giving more than is expected of you.
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