How Excellence Re-Orients Your Life ☀️

📍 Coordinates: Uvita, Costa Rica.

📖 Reading Time: ~3 minutes.

🏴 Vibecheck: I’ve been a growth challenge the last few weeks. Learning how to step into greater leadership in a number of areas, from leading myself, my relationships, and the organizations I steward. It’s been challenging, but I can see the light. I see a next-level opening up. And even just for my own selfish gain, I’m excited to go through the Radical Redesign program we’ve been cooking up. A brief retreat and reassessment of what is important, where I’m going, and who I want to become. We’re starting on July 19, and it would be an honour to have you if you feel the need to stop, reorient, and execute. You can check it out below.

“Learn to value yourself, which means: fight for your happiness.” — Ayn Rand

I inhaled two great works from Ayn Rand: Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead…

I couldn’t put them down. Several thousand phone book pages absorbed in a few days. While I’ve heard whispers about the mythical texts before, I had never jumped in. 

I’m glad I did.

While there are axioms of her philosophy I disagree with, there is a central thread in her work I find compelling: the unbridled pursuit of excellence.

One of the most pernicious and insidious forces taking root in the world today is the vilification of greatness.

The fruition of a trend that has been taking root over centuries. Greatness is attacked. Heroic figures are caricatured as weapons of oppression. Hard work is flaunted as a sin—effort avoided and persecuted at every turn. 

Think of what it implies that ‘tryhard’ has become a pejorative.

The unspoken and uncomfortable truth is that people would much rather tear down those who reflect their inadequacies and failures than do anything about their character. 

It’s simply easier to destroy than to create.

And thus, the centuries-long demolition of virtue, excellence, and greatness. 

Everything today is a shortcut, a hack, a grift, an affinity scam. Reward without work. Outcome without input. Destination without journey. 

This is held as desirable… 

More and more we see the incompetent, the incapable, the downright evil rising into positions of status, influence, power, envy, and inspiration in the eyes of the masses.

“When you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice, you may know that your society is doomed.” — Ayn Rand 

I’m not here today to espouse Randian ethics. I’m here to promote excellence as a noble virtue.

I believe most people are crippled by their potential. I was. At the end of their lives, most peoples’ gravestones will read, “He had so much potential”.

The only way to realize all of your potential is to have none.

Potential is never fully realized. The more you achieve, the greater your potential grows. It’s a horizon, always receding (or expanding). The only way to reach it is not to have it. 

Unconsciously people recognize this and succumb to the downward spiral of realizing their aim: the elimination of potential.

The elimination of excellence. The vilification of the creative force. 

“Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one’s values.” — Ayn Rand

Excellence is one of the highest virtues one can aim at, perhaps for no other reason than how distributed it is.

Striving for excellence in your existence necessitates your engagement in all domains of life.

Aim for excellence in love, compassion, beauty, character, discipline, work, skills, wealth, relationships, health, aesthetics, taste, interests, vision, communication, artistry, choice, courage, honour, integrity, justice, fairness, humility, and style. 

Excellence is a meta-virtue.

It is the virtue that enables the pursuit and embodiment of all other virtues. If we take virtue as a moral good because it reduces the suffering of others, or furthers the positive development of sentient beings – excellence finds its home among the highest.

My suffering is reduced when I engage with excellence. Being awe-struck by an artistic masterpiece, or the uplifting desire for growth that happens when I see a master at their craft. 

Excellence is the driving engine of humanity. The pursuit of improvement and skilled execution of your craft.

Excellence is a virtue.

If it’s time for you to reorient your values, to aim towards something greater, Day 2 of our 10-day Radical Redesign program is a comprehensive values audit. There’s a ton more packed into this.

We start on July 19.

If you feel as we feel, and want to pursue the virtue of excellence in your life, join us.