Tag: Excellence

That Little Extra

“The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra.”

Jimmy Johnson

It’s that last 10% effort that makes all the difference no matter the project. Most of the others stop at 90% and say something like “eh, good enough” and don’t give it the full attention and energy they could have given.

Sometimes good enough is exactly what you need to do. Good enough should be the goal when you feel stuck or paralyzed (for whatever reason) and can’t quite find the motivation to start or progress. In this type of mental state, even 1% is better than 0%.

But when you are at “Good enough” and you are looking for that next level of work that will create an impact, good enough won’t cut it. 90% might be “A for effort” but it’s not going to change your life or anyone else’s for that matter.

Excellence requires a little bit more—a little extra past what you thought was possible.

You could stop at 90%, but what would 100% look like? What would 150% look like?

STAY BOLD, Keep Pursuing,
— Josh Waggoner | Daily Blog #984

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Why Do It?

If no one read my writing, listened to my songs or podcasts, would I still do them?

110%

Just getting by is not enough for me. Excellence is the only way for me — that’s who I’ve decided to be.

I must create and challenge myself. otherwise I think I would go crazy.

I create because I love the journey, and the progress of learning something for the first time and experiencing growth in each step you take.

If you are not saying 110%, then you should probably say no. 

And if you aren’t loving what you’re doing (or doing something you meh on in order to build up to doing something you love), then you should definitely say no.

Stay BOLD, Keep pursuing,

And wherever you are on your journey, keep smiling 🙂

 — Josh Waggoner

Trenches

I’ve always had this fantasy

of going away — off on an adventure — with the purpose of growth & mastery.

To return as a better me. The best version of me. Which I would describe as

Someone who is brilliant and insightful +

Someone well-connected and excellence at communication +

Someone strong and VIBRANT; Fun to be around +

Someone who experiences fear, yet defeats it back every time +

Someone reliable and successful +

Someone who does rather than says.

Excellence. Mastery. Capable.

You could say this fantasy is what Joseph Campbell calls,

the Hero’s Journey —

‘When a hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural, to be reborn and come back with wisdom and knowledge for their fellow humans’

I’m all for adventure, (I mean, I’ve even created an adventure clothing brand for Josh sakes!) but real growth — the hero’s journey — happes within our every day.

Real Growth happens within each day, in our normal lives +

Real Growth is in the trenches +

 

The true hero’s journey is being able to face your own life — with its challenges, problems, fears and trials — and to grow into your own, day in and day out.

Real Growth is how we spend each day — it’s the incremental steps towards excellence +

I believe adventure adds to our lives, but our training needs to be integrated into our every, normal day.

Think of it like this —

Say you go off on an adventure into the woods. Without being able to use your phone, at first you feel anxious about it. ‘what if someone needs to get a hold of me?’ ‘I might miss something important’… After a while, this feeling goes away, and not having to be always on feels fantastic!

But when you come back to civilization, everyone is using there phone — multiple times a day. Leaning down and scrolling, even when you’re trying to talking to them!

You can resist it at first, but eventually you’ll be drawn back to it, looking down at your phone, scrolling just the same.

I’m not dogging phones. I use mine all the time, for connecting and my businesses. 

But we need to be able to live without them.

To experience nature and live with technology in a moderate, non-obsessive, healthy way — without FOMO. We must practice this technological mindset without our normal lives, for it to have an effect.

It has to be integrated, not detached.

 

Remember real growth is made by how we spend each day.

Excellence, Mastery, and Capability come with consistent action every day, integrated within our lives.

 

#KeepPursing, Josh Waggoner

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related wisdom

“Strength and growth come only through continuous effort and struggle.” —Napoleon Hill

 

“If you want to grow a giant redwood, you need to make sure the seeds are ok, nurture the sapling, and work out what might potentially stop it from growing all the way along. Anything that breaks it at any point stops that growth.”  —Elon Musk

 

“All growth depends upon activity. There is no development physically or intellectually without effort, and effort means work.” — Calvin Coolidge

 

“Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that but simply growth, We are happy when we are growing.” — William Butler Yeats

 

Introducing Renaissance Ethos — A Path To Excellence, And Living Well

My mission in life

is to be a Renaissance Man —

Mastery in multiple crafts (for me that’s music, design, coding, finances, entrepreneurship, fashion, wellness.. etc)

And pursing excellence in all that I do. (ha sounds easy right?)

My mission has led me to start the Renaissance Life, an extraordinary life of meaning and worthwhile.

The Renaissance Ethos,

is a focus on the spirit of a Renaissance Life.

It’s a series to help define and clarify what an extraordinary life is and what it takes to create it.

 

Excellence and Growth is the core of the Renaissance spirit.

However,  pursing an extraordinary life will not be easy (all great things aren’t),

we will be faced with many challenges and questions, such as

What is excellence? And how do we achieve excellence in all that we do?

How do we become our best selves — living towards our greatest potential, in the time we have been given?

But that’s okay, because we are in this together. We are a community.

We all have something we want to accomplish, or obstacles we must to face in our lives,

The Renaissance Life is about finding clarity, and meaning, so we can focus on what’s truly important — 

living

and impacting others.

Together we will start a movement — a new Renaissance — of change, and growth in our lives,  in the lives around us, and ultimately, the world.

Welcome to the Renaissance.

#KeepPursuing,

Josh Waggoner

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CHALLENGE: Find Models of Excellence

What’s life without a little challenge?   – boring! That’s what.

Question:  How do we make ourselves better?

Challenge: Find Models of Excellence

Our challenge this week is to find models of excellence we can adapt to our life, so that we can align ourselves towards who we want to be, faster than we could alone.

In each area you want to grow and be brilliant at, find someone who is extraordinary in that area — or has the trait that you desire and emulate them. Multiple areas means multiple models.

It’s been said,

‘The way of excellence starts by copying the excellence around you.’

We start with emulation — copying — adopting traits and ways of thinking / doing from people who are excelling at them.

If someone is succeed at something you want to succeed at, then finding what makes them great and applying it to your own life will help make you great.

 

What does practicing your favorite City and Colour (insert your favorite band here) song,  but model your mind towards their particular brand of excellence?

What does reading do, but opening your mind in the way the writer thinks?

What does a child do, but emulate the world around them (such as their parents)?

 

“People seldom improve when they have no other model but themselves to copy” — Oliver Goldsmith

The goal isn’t to be a copycat, but to use someone else’s model of excellence as the foundations of your own.

Because we are all unique, copying will eventually turn into something original.

Originality is building on what has come before, and breathing life into it through your own way of seeing.

Ask yourself:

  • Which areas do I want to be excellent at, and who are the people already succeeding?
  • Who can I model whose great at ____________?
  • How can I model ______ ?

What traits do they have? What problems did they overcome? What does their day to day look like? Who did they model? 

 

Who are your models of excellence? Challenge Accepted

#KeepPursuing #ChallengeAccepted

Josh Waggoner

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Wisdom of the Ages (An Introduction)

“Knowledge is the food of the soul.” – Plato –

There is a force that exists in the world that has gone by many names.

It’s pure knowledge —

It’s insight and understanding —

It’s an accumulation of thought and experience — most of which has existed before we we’re even born.

It lives, it breathes.

I call it The Wisdom of the Ages.

And we can use it to pursue excellence and develop mastery.

In this day and age of the internet and our globally connected lives, we all have the power of The Wisdom of the Ages within our grasp — literally. Pull out your phone and with a few mindful taps, you can be plugged into knowledge from the smartest minds on the planet — whether they live today, or died centuries ago — and whether you know them personally or not. 

The insights you’re searching for, most likely already exists. It’s the wisdom of every life that came before you. Not all of it is truth, mind you, but it’s up to us to separate the wheat from the chaff. The best way to use this wisdom to our advantage is to study and apply it to our own life – keeping what works, removing what doesn’t. Experimenting our way to our own strategy, by learning from the best.

What is learning but gaining and sharpening useful information to apply to our own life?

What is teaching but distilling what you have learned, experienced and have been taught yourself? to greenhorns. to the misinformed. to the unknowledged.

To teach, you must learn, and to learn you, must be open to new realities.

“Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don’t.” – Bill Nye – 

The Wisdom of the Ages is in our hands. It’s up to us to take advantage of its power, use it to improve our life and the lives around us, and give back by adding value to its supply. 

You’ve know about The Wisdom of the Ages your entire life – now it has a name. And names have power.

The question that remains is, “How do we start to take advantage of this power?”

The first step is curiosity…