On Raising the Bar
The biggest reality shock I experienced when I joined BITS was at the end of the first semester. My CG card read 6.83/10, which was an average grade. For the first time in my life, I was surrounded by peers who were equal ( and in most cases better) than me. I was not at the top of my class. It was a different feeling I did not know how to handle. I was always used to being treated as an academic royalty at school. I was never good at sports or creative pursuits. Studies were all I had to differentiate myself.
I got such a grade because I stopped chasing excellence. BITS published a concept of max, min, and class average after every exam. Instead of looking at the maximum marks and trying to achieve or beat that, I looked at the average and used it to compare myself to whether I did better than the average or not. If I compared myself to average, then I would get average marks. Chasing average meant chasing mediocrity.
Mediocrity is like a black hole. It sucks you in and is difficult to get out of. There is comfort in mediocrity because you find many mediocre peers. So, it is easy to compare yourself to others and feel good about yourself if you do slightly better than others. Like crabs in a well, the others will pull you back in if you try to get out of this space. Mediocrity thrives in numbers. Its self-worth is based upon how many others are present, and hence, when somebody tries to pull away, mediocrity pulls you back. It also gives the false sense of doing work and putting in effort. You are doing something to keep yourself busy, so you should be rewarded. It lulls you into believing that this is the best you can do.
Excellence, on the other hand, is lonely. It thrives in seclusion. It needs discipline and direction. Eventually, being peerless, the only competition that remains is you. You need to be at the top and then beat yourself every day. But to understand what excellence is, you need to see what is excellent in your vocation: the best-in-class product, the zero-defect process, and the website with world-class design. You need first to reach that level. Even shamelessly copy it. Try to replicate the process and steps that define excellence.
But just replicating will not make you excellent. The thing about true excellence is that it gets better when others try to catch up. To understand the true meaning of excellence is to understand the principles and processes which make one excellent. The thought that makes one get out of bed every day and grind out to be the best. To be exceptional, you must chase that thought and grind it out every day by putting your head down.
It would be lonely. At first, people will taunt you and try to pull you down. They do not want you to escape mediocrity. You will fail many times. Excellence is complex, and that is why it is rare. It requires discipline, courage, mental toughness, and the drive never to give up. Most importantly, it requires the reason why you are chasing it. For your reputation? To expand the boundaries of what is possible? For the love of the product? For the love of customers? For money, fame, or adulation? You need to know the core drive. You need to know what your benchmark is and then decide how you plan to beat it.
Excellence is rare, which is why it is so rewarding to achieve it.
