Big Idea Daily | The Way of Excellence

“Excellence combines mastery and mattering.

 

Mastery means developing skill and making progress in activities you deem worthwhile. It could result from learning a trade or advancing a career, but it could also come from increasing the weight of your deadlift, writing poetry, building a table, making art, or learning how to play an instrument. Mattering is a sense that what you are doing has significance, that your contributions and progress are meaningful. Decades of research show mastery and mattering are key to a life well lived, or what psychologists call life satisfaction.

 

We experience the high of excellence when we are creating it, and we are drawn to it as witnesses. It’s the sculpture that elicits a cascade of emotions. The motorcycle that tightly grips the road. The basketball jump shot comprised of one hundred small movements harmoniously flowing together. The craftsperson’s practiced hammer’s strike on a nail. The rhythm of a great sentence. The leader whose calm yet forceful presence commands the attention of an entire room. The back-and-forth of an absorbing conversation. The surgeon operating at her full scope, knowing each surgical tool, incision line, and nerve ending. The poignant turn in a powerful song. Like a finely tuned instrument, excellence exudes an attractiveness and rightness that we know not only in our heads, but also in our hearts.

 

It’s a big part of what makes life worth living.”