Comments on: Your Own Standards

By: Project Junto

Project Junto — Sat, 09 May 2009 00:36:42 +0000

This is a great example! People that attain greatness don’t get there by getting a lucky bounce, and they definitely don’t take credit for it when it happens. You have to push yourself and set your own standards. I guess, in the end, the game that really matters is the one that you play against yourself.

By: Fernando Arámburu

Fernando Arámburu — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 15:05:38 +0000

Great post Brian. I must say that i’m a NBA fan, and a great Michael Jordan fan. It’s amazing how small is the world as I used a similar idea from great Michael Jordan to achieve better standards in my small company in Argentina and to motivate the team and take their standards up and to show them they can do whatever they propose to do…
The story is that during the conference after Chicago Bulls title #6 at Utah (where Jordan hit a win shooter ball after stealing the ball from Karl Malone hands). When asked how he could consistently hit big shots when everyone from the opposing team and the whole world itself knew he was going to take it, MJ looked as if he didn’t understand the question as say: “Do you mean did I worry about missing the shot?” and then he say: “Why would I worry about missing a shot I hadn’t taken yet?”
… As you said in the post, that’s the difference between normal people, best ones and all time best ones…

By: DJ Waldow

DJ Waldow — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 15:28:41 +0000

Brian -

Great stuff. I can relate on many levels. I’m a big believer that true leaders tend to have very high standards and expect (more than) the best best from those around them.
Thanks for sharing…

dj at bronto
twitter.com/djwaldow

By: Nick Campbell

Nick Campbell — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 18:27:09 +0000

Great post. I started to bypass this post on your front page and I’m glad I didn’t. It seems to me that the overwhelming majority of players do it as a job and while that handful of “greats” are trying to perfect their craft. I think this relates back to what Jeff Atwood discusses about with the 20%/80% at http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001002.html.

By: Brian Wynne Williams

Brian Wynne Williams — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 04:31:47 +0000

@Jared — thanks! I think it’s good that our standards keep rising as we get older (… and older … and older …). Hopefully we’re getting better at our craft, and without raised standards we’d stagnate. You’re right, though, you’ll always have setbacks and mini-failures if you’re pushing yourself the right way, and you have to keep moving.

@Justin — great point.

By: Justin Thorp

Justin Thorp — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 13:38:48 +0000

Right on Brian! What helps me is being transparent about what my standards and goals are so that my close friends and general community will help to keep me accountable.

By: Jared Goralnick

Jared Goralnick — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 18:16:25 +0000

What an excellent post, Brian. It’s good to have high standards, to understand what it is you’re aiming towards and recognize when, regardless of the outcome, you know whether you performed at a level you’re proud of. Like last night’s game–if I were on the Lakers I wouldn’t have been proud of the performance, even though they ultimately won.

The one caveat is that as we get older it seems that our standards get higher and higher, and we have to recognize when it’s simply impractical to expect that perfection. Or, when to recognize that mistakes do happen. That is, when we underperform, we have to, like Magic, move on and play the rest of the game.

Thanks for sharing this story–I empathize, and will pass it on.