George Brett was one of the greatest baseball players of all time. He played twenty-one years of Major League Baseball for the Kansas City Royals, finished his career with more than 3,000 hits and 300 home runs, and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1999.
As he neared the end of his career, a reporter asked him how he would like his very last at bat to go. Everyone assumed that his answer would be to go out with some fanfare—it would be the bottom of the ninth, in the World Series, with the bases loaded, two outs, full count, and he hits a home run to win the game. However, the answer Brett gave was surprising and far less dramatic. He said that he wanted the last play of his Major League Baseball career to be an average play. He wanted to hit a slow-grounder to the second baseman, and he wanted the second baseman to field it easily and throw him out as he was running to first. But when he threw him out, Brett said he wanted to be running as fast as he could toward the bag. He said he wanted it to be said of him that he always gave his best and always tried his hardest right up until the very end.
George Brett is a picture of someone committed to excellence, and his story is inspiring and challenging. He wanted to be known as a man that sought excellence in every play of his career, not just the big ones. This mentality didn’t just make him a good baseball player. It led to a successful 21-year baseball career with a consistently high level of contribution to his team and to the sport as a whole.
Can you say the same of yourself? Do you strive for excellence on the ordinary days, not just the big ones?
I get it. We all get tired, burned out, and go through seasons of discouragement. But in the middle of the mundane, we should commit ourselves to excellence every single day. It’s easy to do this when you’re trying to land the big job, get the big client, or close the big sale, but on the day packed with meetings to attend and emails to return, are you committed to the same level of excellence?
Take some time today to think about the way you walk through your personal and professional life. Do you strive for excellence in the mundane moments? Do you pursue your relationships constantly? Do you strive to produce your best work at all times, even when nobody’s watching?
Trust me, I know it’s a lot easier to say than it is to put this into practice. But if every one of us showed up every single day with excellence as our goal, imagine the impact we could make!
