Do You Have the “Mariano Quality” that Made Him the Best at What He Did?

Do You Have the “Mariano Quality” that Made Him the Best at What He Did?

Mariano Rivera was the best there was at what he did.  His retirement was greeted with respect and admiration by everyone that knew him or knew of him.  We know he wasn’t perfect – none of us are.   But, there is no doubt that he always did the best he could.  The questions are, “Do we do the best we can do?”  “What made Mariano be the best?”

Talent, knowledge, attitude and opportunity are obvious assumptions.  Without those, you can get only so far.  What I believe made Mariano the best was that he gave 100% all of the time.  Every effort was the best he could possibly do.  I believe the quality that propelled him was his internal pride to do the absolute best he could.  He did not accept less from himself.

My question to my readers is, “Do you have the internal pride to not allow yourself to do less than the best every time you get the opportunity?”  Do you have the sense of ownership your work needs to have you perform superbly?  Do you treat everything you do as the most important thing you have to do – for that time, on what you are doing?  Do you have the internal mechanism that does not permit you to do less than a great job and that does not let you accept from yourself less than the best you can do?

I hear many excuses for poor performance – “I was rushed,” “I did not like the client or customer,” “I did not have everything I needed to do it right,” “My staff wasn’t available and I had to do it myself,” “The fee was too low” and other inane defenses.  To my way of thinking… there is no apology for doing less than the best.  If you can’t do your best, don’t accept the responsibility.

The same goes for people working alongside and under you.  If you don’t do your best, how can you ever expect the best from others?  And, if for one time, for one project, for one moment because of the exigencies of the situation you relax the “best” standard, you’ve destroyed your “best” standard for all time afterwards.  The best you can do is the best you can do!

Use Mariano as a role model.  Do your best always and expect the best always.  Do not disappoint yourself.