The 48 Laws Of Excellence
by Dr
Henry Jekyll
Law 1
Never Learn From Someone Threatened By Excellence
Never limit yourself to accommodate the insecurities of
others. Your goal is your own personal excellence – and as such do not curtail
the development of your skills, self-confidence or courage for anyone. If you
are working for someone who is threatened by excellence, you are working for
the wrong person. If you are learning from someone who is threatened by
excellence, you are learning the wrong lessons. If you are learning from a man
who is scared of being eclipsed, you have already eclipsed him.
Law 2
Make Trustworthy Friends
Surround yourselves with friends you can trust. No man
ever acheived anything great alone. It has never happened. Build trust by being
trustworthy, and cultivating a shrewd sense of character. Do not allow yourself
to fall into believing what you want to believe about a person because they are
beautiful, strong and talented. Be honest with yourself. Make trustworthy
friends.
Law 3
Be Relentlessly Open About Your Intentions
Inspire others to join with you by the boldness and
openness with which you act. Do not worry about others moving to cut off your
plans. Your bold and decisive action will cut through such scheming, and seize
the initiative. Learn the skill of quick and decisive action.
Law 4
Always Say Exactly Enough To Be Understood Perfectly
Language is a tool. Use it. Learn how to use it as a
master violinist plays a violin. It's purpose is simple - the communication of
ideas, feelings and concepts. Use it to communicate your intentions and plans,
to inspire others to join with you. Just don't talk too much for too long. You
have work to do.
Law 5
Your Reputation is Incidental
Reputation is symptomatic of excellence, and not causal -
that is to say, it happens around you when you cultivate excellence inside
yourself and live courageously. Do not hide from reputation, and do not be
ashamed to stand up and be counted, but do not get lost in it's pursuit. If you
focus on your reputation in and of itself, that reputation will have no
substance to back it up. If you concentrate primarily on excellence, and make
reputation a secondary concern, then you will have a powerful foundation should
your reputation come under assault. Never attack the reputation of others.
Instead, look to their hearts, and see if they pursue excellence, or something
else, such as reputation. If they do, their empire is built on a house of
cards. It will be no obstacle to you.
Law 6
Do Not Shy From Attention
This is a world of indolence and apathy. Many people are
seduced by the myriad of toys, games, flashing lights and drama which surround
us in the modern age. As such, mediocrity is commonplace. But the potential for
excellence is within everyone. As such, you must expect that your excellence
will draw attention. Use it. Use that attention to project your excellence into
the world, to inspire others. Do not stand out just for the sake of standing
out, but stand out by the quality of your life, and the person you are. And do
not hide yourself.
Law 7
Ask for, Inspire and Accept Assistance, and Give Credit
Where It's Due
Remember this - your friends and comrades are as important
to you as your arms and legs. As and when you rise to a position where people
look up to you, delegate to them, but personally speaking, treat them as
equals. Use the wisdom, knowledge, and legwork of other people to further a
common cause you each share. Make sure that you never allow these people to
feel unappreciated. They are so essential to your success that if they leave
you it will be like losing a body part. You must understand this. Only then can
you acheive greatly.
Law 8
Do not be easily provoked. Cultivate Self-Discipline
If someone is attempting to provoke a reaction from you,
you are the one in control. It is always better to meet any opposition on your
terms and not theirs. Remember this. If someone is provoking you, they have
chosen that battlefield. Do not meet them there. Meet them somewhere else, if
at all. Always keep in mind though, that your personal excellence is massively
more important than any personal victories you may enjoy over individuals.
Law 9
Take Actions, Do Not Get Lost In Argument, Or Thought.
Opinions are ephemeral and have no reality. Action
matters. Opinions and ideas are only of value when they inform action. They
only have any worth at all when they are manifested in reality. When in doubt,
take control of a situation by seizing the initiative. This is a crucial law,
which can be applied on a grand scale or a very small scale - even in
conversations. Develop the art of moving decisively, and well. Cultivate the
ability of shooting from the hip with accuracy in your life. Hone your ability
to choose wisely, fast, then to act upon it in a totally committed fashion.
Law 10
Infection: Avoid the Self-Indulgent and the Sceptical.
Negative emotional states are extremely infectious. If you
are keeping company with the lazy, the self-indulgent, those who have a victim
mentality or those who are habitually sceptical of ideas. They are all each
highly damaging in their own way, but perhaps the worst of them are those of a
victim mentality, and those who criticise the ideas of others. Self-indulgence
and scepticism are easy and cowardly. These people attack excellence in all
it's forms and plant seeds of doubt in the minds of others. Fight this in any
way you can. Make a long term commitment to freeing yourself of their influence
in every possible way.
Law 11
Learn to Inspire Independence in those who wish to Join
You.
Another person is always of more use to you as a powerful
ally than as a sheep-like follower. Never accept blind adulation, and never
allow others to rest their self-esteem on your goodwill. Always expect
independence of those who seek to join with you. Reward emotional independence
in your friends with respect. A bond of trust between brothers in arms is
always stronger than a bond of validation and power between leader and
follower.
Law 12
Use Honesty and Generosity From a position of Strength to
Disarm your Enemies
Do not allow yourself to be taken advantage of, but
cultivate the ability to keep your ego out of the decisions that you make
regarding those who you dislike, or who dislike you. Attempt, as far as
possible, to distance yourself from negative feelings toward others. You have
bigger fish to fry than getting involved in personal dramas. At the same time,
remember that a man is always more use to you as an ally than as an enemy.
Extending an olive branch to someone is simple, and if you are offering it from
a position of strength, it will most likely be accepted, which will mean that
you have one less enemy and one more ally.
Law 13
When Forging Alliances, Do not plead like a bleating
sheep.
Get yourself to a position where you have something to
offer, then propose an alliance of mutual benefit with someone who's skills
complement your own. It is easy to forge win-win relationships with people if
you have something to offer them. Both of you together can achieve more than
either of you individually. Make certain that you do not compromise yourself,
and do not be quick to remind others of past acts of charity. Your charity is
your own business. Generosity is its own reward. What matters in the moment is
the pursuit of excellence, of real achievement. Remember this.
Law 14
Do not Spend Time Obsessing Over Rivals
They are an irrelevance to you. You are not gauging your
success by that of others, but only by the distance you have travelled on the
road to personal excellence. If you are under threat, deal with the threat
decisively and shrewdly - but only if you are under threat. Remember that your
genuine cultivation of personal excellence makes attacking you at a deep level
very difficult. Even if someone could successfully portray you as something
else, such a deception, no matter how convincing, would be no more than a
facade. Reality itself is on your side.
Law 15
Transcend your Enemy Totally
Do not pick fights. End them. Make certain that you are
the most difficult-to-provoke person in the world. You are succeeding on your
terms, not those offered to you by well-meaning friends or the terms offered to
you by those who attack you. If you get sucked in to fighting personal battles,
your excellence will always be something that exists relative to another. You
have bigger fish to fry. As far as you can, beat your enemies by transcending
the petty concerns they wish to squabble over with you. If you need to
eliminate a threat, someone who is attacking you, always remember that if they
provoked the fight they have done so because of a weakness in them, probably
based on some form of self-deception and fear which they have not overcome. As
such, the truth is on your side. Look for that truth. It is a weapon of
incredible power.
Law 16
You Are Defined Most By How You Handle Damage
When you are weak, when you feel low, when you have been
struck in the most personal and heart-wrenching of ways – that is the time to
fight harder than you've ever fought. It is in those moments of absolute truth
where we decide our own worth. It is when all logic and reason are telling us
to give up on what we know is right, on what our hearts desire more than anything
in the world, that we must fight the hardest. Let the blows of your enemies and
the cruel twists of fate be spurs to your efforts. Cultivate your defiance of
them to an extremely high degree. Optimism is not an alternative to pessimism.
It is the state of mind of those who refuse, in the face of logic and reason,
ever to give up on themselves or on their heart's desire - no matter what the
situation in which they are placed.
Law 17
Keep On Your Toes: Cultivate an Air of Dynamism
Humans are creatures of habit, and fall into patterns. You
are not immune, and neither are those around you. Cultivate in yourself the
faculty of creativity and imagination, so that your actions are neither
predictable nor ineffective. Demand constant and persistent action in pursuit
of your heart's desire, and do not get bogged down in worrying about the
correct method. If in doubt, act. You will make mistakes, but you will also
score victories and the more action you take, the better you will become at
taking action. Effective action is like a muscle. Work it.
Law 18
The World Is A Mirror, So Drop Your Guard
The world is like a mirror. If you walk about the place
with your defences high, the world will raise its defences to you, and you will
be alone. If you walk around the world looking for weaknesses and openings to
exploit, people will not connect with you and you will be alone. If you walk
around the world with your guard lowered, wearing your heart on your sleeve,
you will be attacked and it will hurt. But if you are willing to take any pain
associated with lowering your guard as a lifestyle, you will make strong,
effective and useful connections with other people of worth and value. You will
also condition your heart to be strong, as well as open. This strength will
serve as one of the key ingredients for excellence.
Law 19
Be Mindful Of Creating Enemies.
You can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs,
and there's no need to tiptoe around people's egos when you have to do what is
right. At the same time, if you can do what is right without offending others,
do it that way. This is not something to obsess over, but make certain that if
you are making an enemy, you are aware of what you are doing and you've thought
through the consequences. There are millions of ways to achieve each and every
goal you set yourself. It's better for you not to put yourself in a position
where you might come under attack in the future.
Law 20
Commit to your conscience, Commit to yourself.
Your moral sense is the core of your being, whether you
like it or not. Never be ashamed to act upon what you believe to be right. At
the same time, and as much as is possible, retain your integrity, and hold
control of your anger. Always control your indignation – do not allow it to control
you. At the same time, your morality is critical. It drives you to do what is
highest and best, and it will show you the path that your life should be
taking, if you let it. Listen to it, and commit to its call. It is the heart of
you. If you walk in tune with your morality, you will be at peace with
yourself, even if the road you tread is a difficult one.
Law 21
Never Be Ashamed Of Your Gifts, And Do Not Hide Them
If you are intelligent, be openly intelligent. If you are
eloquent, be openly eloquent. If you are skilled at your job, be openly skilled
at your job. If you have a skill, do not hide it for the benefit of others. The
only part of them you are benefiting is the lowest and least worthy – their
ego. Develop your excellence in the light of day. Those who feel intimidated by
this and who shy away from you or snipe at you, even if large in quantity, will
be totally outclassed by the quality of the people your pursuit of excellence
will draw to you, even if these people are few.
Law 22
Use the Surrender Tactic: Give the Baby His Bottle
If you are being sucked into a conflict, it's often better
to surrender graciously very early on. The key is knowing whether or not the
conflict is something worth fighting. Most of the time it isn't. It is hard to
see this sometimes because when you are provoked, many people will stand their
ground over a point of principle when the actual reality of the conflict is
basically irrelevant to them. This is anathema to excellence. Cultivate within
yourself the ability to step back from conflicts and examine them
dispassionately. If it is apparent that someone is throwing a tantrum over an
issue that has no higher meaning, give the baby his bottle. You will often find
that it is insecurity and fear which motivated them in the first place, and
once they do not see you as a threat, they may indeed become a useful ally.
Law 23
Concentrate Your Efforts
Achieve things by focusing your efforts totally on the
achievement of one task at a time. This is critical. Focus yourself on
completing that task to a degree of excellence and effectiveness, and then move
swiftly on to the next task. Focus completely on that. This is the principle of
the application of maximum force. Focus all your energies at one challenge at a
time, overcome that challenge, then focus all your energies on the next one.
You are invincible in this as long as you do not let up, or lose focus, and you
continue to assault the problem for as long as it takes for that problem to be
overcome. No task is beyond your power to accomplish.
Law 24
Never Play the Courtier
It is far better to offend someone than it is to make a
habit of lying. The excellence of your genuine self is what you seek to
develop. Deception and trickery are a gamble and a trap. If you allow yourself
to use these tools out of fear or greed then they can and will obscure your
true self from others, and from you. This is catastrophic. Instead, work on the
development of your skills of self-expression, and make the genuine self you express
a powerhouse of excellence. There will be no limit to how far you can rise in
the world.
Law 25
Re-Create Yourself In Line With Your Deepest And Most
Noble Desire
Look into yourself. Take a long time with this one. Really
plunge deeply. Work through all the layers of propriety and social programming,
all the things you've been told are important and all the things you just want
for reasons of ego. Punch down through those layers and really find your
heart's desire. What do you want to be? Ask yourself that, and keep asking
until you find a clear and distinct answer. That answer is the meaning of your
life. It will give you a clarity of purpose, a goal which you can focus on to
rise above the irrelevant dramas of the present and something to move toward.
No matter how wild or amazing it seems, hold to it. It is what you want the
most. It is your Arete, your excellence. Picture it clearly and often. Never,
ever let it go.
Law 26
Get Your Hands Dirty
Get involved on every level. Never be above the grunt
work. Make the amount that you are willing to actually do in the pursuit of
excellence exactly this: as much as it takes. Do whatever it takes. Make things
happen. Build your castle stone by stone with your own bare hands if you must.
No task is ignominious that is part of the pursuit of excellence.
Law 27
Utilise People's Desire to Connect to Create a Group of
Staunch, Powerful and Creative Allies
People have an overwhelming desire to believe in
something. Never, ever become the focal point of such desire. Remain grounded
in yourself, and fully human in public. Do not set yourself up to be something
you are not, because it is a gamble that you do not need to make. Also, the
benefits which it will give you will be transitory and weak – the worship that
you are given by someone is not a comment on your greatness, but on their
insecurity. Instead, remember that the greatest and most talented people in the
world need friends also. No-one is above gaining one more ally. Share with them
your vision of what you will become. Fuse your heart's desires together into
great projects. In a world filled with apathy, complacency and selfishness,
your honest pursuit of excellence will be a breath of fresh air.
Law 28
Cultivate Effective Audacity
Hone your audacity like the edge of a blade by being
audacious whenever you can to the best of your ability. If you wish to achieve
something, but are unsure of a course of action, attempt it anyway. Audacity
and boldness are crucial skills for achieving excellence. Even if you fail, you
will learn more about taking action, and about seizing the initiative instead
of overanalysing an opportunity until it is gone. You will learn more about how
you react under pressure, and what it feels like to face down fear. These skills
are more important than any contingent victory. Cultivate them. This is about
the athlete. Not the individual races.
Law 29
Make Specific, Contingent Plans
The detail is everything. Making specific plans is a
creative effort, and like any creative effort it is a skill which can be
developed to a very high level. Excellence is something that must be
cultivated, and excellence at making specific plans for effective action is
skill that is impossible to do without. No matter how well you react to others,
and no matter how effective an opportunist you are, sooner or later you will
need to seize the initiative in a sustained way or lose it. As such, this
skill, the skill of practical planning, is effectively the skill of taking
control of your destiny. Do not be without it.
Law 30
Do Not Rely On Clever Tricks
When your actions are in line with your expertise, they
are natural and executed with ease. All the toil and practice that goes into
developing them becomes invisible. Do not feel you need to hide this –
excellence is not a magic trick. It is something that you must be developed,
cultivated, built up from solid foundations. Your excellence is not an
illusion. Do not build it with clever tricks, but around a core of rock solid
central skills. You do not need to have a dizzying repertoire of tactical
knowhow. Focus instead on building your ability to do the obvious things really
well.
Law 31
Create the Options: Play By Your Own Rules
An option is nothing more than an idea. It is very rare
that there are only two ideas which can resolve a situation. Usually, there are
millions of different ways to resolve a situation in your favour. If you are
presented with a stark choice where you lose either way, detach your emotions
from the situation and think dispassionately and creatively. Avoid choosing the
lesser of two evils. Always look for a way out that benefits everyone involved
– there is almost always one to hand.
Law 32
Appeal to People's Best Selves – Give Them A Chance To
Shine
The truth is often avoided because people are afraid of
it. Many people spend a great deal of time and energy building up their fears
into something big. Fear is ugly and unpleasant. Never appeal to weakness and
insecurity – if you do only weakness and insecurity will answer your call. If
you build an empire on that, you are building it on sand, like a fool. The
truth may be harsh, but it is solid. Build an empire on truth and reality. It
will have a strong foundation. If you appeal to courage and excellence, courage
and excellence will answer your call. There is great power in tapping into the
excellence of the masses. That power can be focused and unleashed, and as you
build an empire of excellence in the world, you build an empire of personal
excellence inside yourself.
Law 33
Discover Each Man's Excellence
Everyone has a strength, a natural talent, which they can
develop to an extremely high degree. It is what they love, it is their passion
and their calling. Whatever it is, if you can encourage it in others, you will
draw out of them all that is highest and best. You can create extremely strong
alliances this way with people who quickly become highly effective and highly
skilled.
Law 34
Respect Yourself.
Self respect is based on a simple recognition that you are
a human being. Do not allow yourself to be treated badly. Do not compromise
your dignity. You are a human being, and all human dignity has worth and value.
Therefore your dignity itself has worth and value. Do not compromise on
disrespect. If someone disrespects you, call them on it – do not allow your
feelings to be provoked, but call them on their disrespect. Respect is
something that your humanity demands. It is not something you need to earn. It
is your birthright. Moreover, do not be cruel to yourself. Refrain from
berating yourself over past errors. You would not savagely berate someone else
for their mistakes - their humanity itself affords them the right to err and
still be of great intrinsic value. Your humanity affords yourself the same right.
Recognise that and act accordingly.
Law 35
Master the Art of Opportunity
Your hard work and diligence is only as useful as the
direction in which you move. The opportunities that you seek are critical. Keep
a weather eye out for any chance of a break, and if you get one, act swiftly
and decisively. Your plans exist for you to seize the initiative, but always
understand that it is only through capitalising on the opportunities that are
presented to you, and the opportunities created by your victories that you will
achieve greatly. If you fail to take an opportunity, or fail to capitalise on
an opening, do not beat yourself up. Redouble your efforts. Create another
opening. Capitalise on that. Seize opportunities with both hands. Drop
everything and pursue them – trust your instincts. They are what you have been
waiting for.
Law 36
Focus beyond the problem - Keep your eyes on the prize.
By focusing on problems, dramas and conflicts you distract
yourself from your goal – personal excellence, alliance and the acheivement of
your heart's desire. At the same time, you will encounter a myriad of problems,
dramas and conflicts in your pursuit of excellence. Sometimes these things
cannot be avoided. Some battles must be fought. What you focus on is what life
gives you. When facing problems, focus on solutions. When facing drama, focus
on resolution. When faced with conflict, focus on victory. Concentrate your
intellectual resources on resolving the matter at hand - but be certain not to
be drawn into it. You will always have bigger fish to fry.
Law 37
Be Spectacular
Let your excellence be a beacon to others. Develop
yourself until you can compete at the highest degree, and win. Be a fireworks
display of humanity, a living example of what can be achieved through
endurance, faith and courage. Find an arena where you can excel openly, and
excel there. Dominate it. Own it. Once you have demonstrated that it is your
own, find a bigger arena. Inspired by your excellence, others will join with
you, lift you higher and raise themselves up in turn.
Law 38
Cultivate the Skill of Connecting with Others, And Guard
Against Arrogance
If you have the ability to genuinely connect with others,
you can go against the times, explore and utilise unconventional ideas and groundbreaking
methods, and people will still love you for who you are. Never lose touch with
your humanity, for if you do you will lose touch with the humanity of others.
Make sure that you cultivate a love of humanity as part of your excellence –
disdain for the weak is the thin end of the wedge of arrogance. Look for the
humanity in others, and cultivate compassion for those who live enslaved by
fear. Do not allow them to infect you with doubt, but do not let them infect
you with a sense of superiority either. Do not pat yourself on the back when
you see those who are mired in weakness. The only person you can gauge your
success by is you.
Law 39
Expand your position to encircle and undercut your enemies
Do not provoke others into conflict for the sake of glory.
At the same time, understand that in attempting to better yourself, in pursuing
excellence, you will threaten others who will seek to attack you and bring you
down. Answer only the intellectual content of their attacks, and do not repay
their vitriol in kind. Always seek to link your ideas with theirs over shared
common ground – instead of annihilating their intellectual position. This is
critical, and an argumentative tool of immense power. It is always better to
broaden your position so that it includes the main thrust of their attack
within it, than open up a divisive war of words. In doing so, you will undercut
their attack and broaden your perspective. You will gain insight, and they may
well repay you in kind, and become an ally. If they continue to attack you, it
will be increasingly obvious to anyone that they are not motivated by rational
concerns, but by jealousy, envy and spite. They will lose by default.
Law 40
Accept help.
Learn to accept help from others when it is offered. Your
pursuit of excellence will be inspiring to many who you cannot directly assist.
If they wish to help you, accept their help. Generosity is a blessing which can
centre a person and transcend the petty concerns in which they are bogged down.
It allows them to become part of something higher and greater, and their
assistance to you, as an act of kindness on their part, allows them to pursue
excellence in their own lives. There is nothing to fear from accepting help
whne it is genuinely and freely offered. At the same time be mindful that
no-one uses the memory of past assistance to blackmail you emotionally into
compromising yourself.
Law 41
Stand on the Shoulders Of Giants
Do not try to reinvent the wheel. Learn from others and
then develop new directions with innovation and creativity. Always strive to be
at the cutting edge. Do not slavishly follow anyone, and appreciate the
fallible humanity of those you look up to. All the legends in your chosen field
of excellence were nothing more than people, just like you. You are capable of
more than them. Much more. Think of them as the people who cleared the path for
you to blaze a trail further, brighter and higher than any who have come
before.
Law 42
Be Mindful Of The Profoundly And Consciously Selfish
Understand that some people who attack you will do so
convincingly and well. They are threatened by the existence of excellence
because they worship self-interest, manipulation and the control of others.
You, and especially your success, represents a critical threat to the entire
belief systems of these people, and they dare not face the darkenss in their
own hearts because, in truth, it terrifies them. If you come across such
people, avoid them like the plague. Cut them completely out of your life. They will
become a convergence point for dissident elements who wish to attack excellence
itself. Do not play by their rules, do not get sucked in to their games, and
remember this – like vampires, they thrive on shadows and darkness. They cannot
stand the light of day. Do your work in the open, and they will be unable to
move against you decisively without revealing their rotten nature.
Law 43
Connect With the Hearts and Minds of Others. Manipulation
is Dangerous and Unnecessary
If you openly coerce someone into helping you, they will
nurse a grudge and wait for an opportunity to take you down. Even if they do
not do this, they will spread poison behind your back, slipping stilettos of
doubt between the ribs of those who can help you. If you manipulate someone
into helping you out, the second they realise they are your pawn they will
attack you with a vengeance many times as powerful as if you had openly coerced
them. Moreover, they will spread the truth of your deceitful nature among your
allies, and weaken your alliances. Coercion and manipulation are desperate
fall-back options when everything else has already failed. As lifestyle
choices, they are doomed to failure. Instead, connect with someone's strengths.
Do this by finding common cause among others who pursue excellence, and those
who you inspire to pursue excellence. Do it also by forging true friendships
among those you work with.
Law 44
Your Fear is your Compass.
Do not build coping strategies to work your way around the
things you fear the most. Face them head on. The fact is that fear is the root
of every insecurity, every failure, every regret that you use to beat yourself
up with when you are feeling low. Defeating it is not an optional extra. Fear
is the critical, tragic flaw that has held you back, and you must overcome it.
Overcoming fear does not mean becoming fearless. It means getting angry. Become
furious at your fear. Go straight for it, straight for the throat. Savage it.
Never let it get away with controlling you. It has nothing but your failure at
heart. It is your enemy. It is your greatest foe. It is in many ways, your only
true enemy. Fight it always, with righteous fury. Your fear is your compass.
Whatever you are most afraid of right now is what you should be doing right now
in order to be free.
Law 45
Embrace Change, but Keep a Sense of Direction and Reality
The pursuit of excellence has internal and external
aspects. Internally, fight your fear and fix your heart's desire as your
ultimate goal. Externally, face your fear in reality day after day, and forge
your heart's desire into something real and amazing with endurance, opportunism
and courage. As you do this, make certain though that you keep yourself
grounded. If you lose touch with reality, you will have failed. If you become
lost in dreaming, you will have failed. Excellence is something that must be
real, that must be realised, that must be pushed into actuality through force
of will and decisive action. Reality is the ultimate testing ground for
excellence. Excellence must be given form in reality for it to have any
meaning. Honing yourself is a key facet of excellence, but do not get lost in
sharpening a sword you never draw in battle. If you never wield your excellence
in reality then you might as well not waste your time honing it at all. Wield
it.
Law 46
Excellence is not perfection; Excellence is better.
Seeking perfection is self-defeating because perfection is
static. This means firstly that, as a static concept, it has no existence in
the real world. Secondly it means that a perfect thing is something that has
been completed, and thus ended. If you seek to perfect yourself, you are really
seeking to end yourself. To finish yourself. If you seek something long enough,
you will achieve it. Excellence is dynamic, and as such it has no limits. If
you seek excellence, you are seeking to reach a state of positive dynamism that
is greater than anything yet seen. Excellence, unlike perfection, leaves
infinite room for personality, style, panache and flair. As such, this quest is
both endless, and endlessly worthwhile.
Law 47
Remain grounded in reality but reach for the stars
Each victory is nothing more than a waypoint. Excellence
is never complete. Each victory is simply an opportunity to capitalise upon –
and no victory, no matter how absolute, is ever the end of the story. It is
only the end of the chapter, and it opens the doorway to the achievement of
even greater things. Never stop. Not once. Until you are dead.
Law 48
Excellence is your Birthright. Claim it.
Excellence is your birthright as a man. If unclaimed, it
will forever elude you. If you turn your whole life to it's pursuit, the world
will salute you for your courage, and you will open the door to the greatest
future of which you are capable. Ultimately, the universe is a mirror. If you
make excellence the core of your heart, excellence will find you and you will
live an excellent life. It will, at times, be hard. It will, at times, be
scary. But it will always, in some way, be excellent.
As will you.