Excellence in the ordinary

I listened to a great story and lesson today from an experienced speaker.

He was about to share the stage with a pastor he admired tremendously. The pastor asked him, “Do you know why most young pastors fail at speaking, at being great orators?” He didn’t know the answer. “Because it becomes humdrum to them [the young pastors]. They don’t spend the time that they would spend as if they were speaking to a stadium, as if they were speaking to 10 million people on the radio and they don’t have that excellence in the ordinary.”

The experienced speaker further shared about what he learned from that. 

“Now I’m not sure why he was telling me that… but boy that lesson coming from someone that I think so much of meant so much to me. Excellence in the ordinary. Most people don’t win at life [in] certain areas of their life not because of one big event but they get killed death by a thousand cuts. It’s not the little thing that ruins your marriage. It’s not the little thing that causes you to go into debt… I’m challenging you today to have excellent in the little things…”

Dave Ramsey

What a powerful reminder to not just strive for excellent in our work life, but also in our personal life. At first this sounded grand and then exhausting. Don’t we all have many tasks, projects, and relationships? But what if we level up our effort in one area and see how it goes? Then we up the level in another area, etc. What could tomorrow look like?

What about when (not if) some things fall by the wayside? Well, that’s what prayer or meditation, community, and self-reflection is for. It’s OK to fail. It goes hand in hand with excellence and success.

Original story found via YouTube here [timestamp 01:28:52-01:32:47].

Today, Dave Ramsey is a personal money-management expert and popular national radio personality. His seven best-selling books have sold over 11 million copies combined.