I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed, but like me, you are probably able to do what any great champion does. For example, I can drive a race car, play golf, hockey, soccer, run the 100m dash, dive off a diving board, swim, etc., just like all the champions in those sports. However, in all this list, I don’t do anything excellently. I do it a little, occasionally, for fun or to pass the time.

This is the difference between the amateur and the professional.

The professional does things in an “excellent” way. Well, excellent enough to get paid for it. It’s like playing field hockey in a garage league vs. a professional league. The former does it for fun, the latter makes a living doing it.

I don’t know what you do for a living, but are you excellent? For example, if you are an insurance broker, are you excellent enough to play in the National Insurance Brokers League or if you play in the Minor Insurance Brokers League. Only you have that answer.

You might say: We can’t all be Sidney Crosby! True enough! But maybe you could be the one playing alongside Sidney Crosby or, better still, you could be a Sidney Crosby in your own right. It’s like the lady who’s been singing in her shower all her life, who, under the influence of her friends, decides to go on “American Got Talent” and throws everyone to the ground with her voice.

Maybe you’re that talented person who doesn’t know it? Or maybe you know you’re “excellent”, but you’re afraid to take action. As a result, you’re good at the job you’re doing right now, but you could be excellent at the other job you’re afraid to apply yourself to.

We talk about the same. Maybe what I’m sharing won’t affect you at all. Or maybe it will give you the kick you need to take your career, or even your life, to the next level. It’s up to you.

But think about it. If what you’d really like to do is being done by someone right now, why shouldn’t you be able to do it yourself? It’s just a matter of going from amateur to excellent.

That’s what I said to myself 26 years ago. If so-and-so was able to become a speaker and make a good living doing it, I “m capable too. I just have to learn what it takes and work at it. I am now an excellent professional speaker.

If you read me often or even occasionally, you know that you are “responsible” for the excellence you deploy on a daily basis, or the amateurism with which you content yourself.

At the start of this vacation season, why not do a little thinking on the subject and decide to become “excellent”.

Have a good summer!