Excellence Isn’t Optional Anymore. It’s the Standard.

Nobody taught me to demand excellence. It’s just how I’m wired. I grew up in the 90s playing basketball. Went to school for architecture where I drew imaginary buildings that didn’t matter, but I would stay up 2, 3, 4 days in a row without sleeping to get them right. Always been driven to be the best at what I’m doing. Not to be pompous. Not to show off. Just: if I’m going to do something, excellence is a requirement. That hasn’t changed. If anything, it’s gotten stronger.

Where Drive Comes From

I think it’s partly sports that motivated me. But really it’s a thing from within. I’m curious. I like asking questions. On a constant quest for knowledge. I’m a builder. I like cool shit that people find useful. I like talking to customers because I want to hear what they have to say: what do they actually need and want? I don’t just like talking to customers or looking at data. I like figuring out, based on their data and their conversations, what they need, what makes sense for them, what’s the long-term plan. Yes I can build just about anything. But if it’s not going to fit into your long-term plan, there’s no sense in me building it. One, I would have to maintain it forever. Two, it may not end up being that useful. My mother, my grandmother, my father, my grandfather: anybody that’s been a part of my life has had that same drive. It’s obviously from within, but I’ve had great people around me most of my life. Unfortunately, some of the greatest people are no longer still around. That legacy matters. When you grow up surrounded by people who don’t accept mediocrity, you don’t either.

What Recovery Taught Me About Drive

I had my stroke at 37. Yes, I had a lot of nurses and physical therapy. Many helpful people along the way. But those people didn’t come to my house. They didn’t make me do the work. Ultimately, if I wanted to get out of the wheelchair, it was on me. My wife helped. My kid helped. But really it was me. I pushed myself out of the wheelchair and into running marathons. Nobody did it for me. Nobody dangled a carrot in front of me. I was motivated from within. That’s the thing about real drive: it doesn’t need external pressure. It doesn’t need someone standing over you telling you what to do. It’s the voice in your head that says “this isn’t good enough yet” even when everyone else is satisfied. The stroke didn’t give me drive. I already had it. What the stroke did was strip away everything that wasn’t essential and force me to prove whether that drive was real or just talk. Turns out it was real.

Why I Have a Hard Time With Laziness

This is why I have a hard time dealing with people sometimes: they’re not as motivated. They don’t have the drive or the desire to be great. When I see laziness and sloppiness, it drives me absolutely insane. I don’t really care about it the way I used to. I just realize some people will never be there and that’s OK. To each their own. But the reason I’m as passionate as I am is because I’ve been through a lot of hard shit. I’m not saying I’m different or better. I’m just saying look at my body of work. Look at what I’ve achieved. Look at what’s happened to me, mostly my own doing, but I figured it the fuck out. I have a really hard time around other people who are not also shooting for excellence or striving for greatness. That’s why I work with the clients that I work with: they’re equally motivated to achieve great things. That’s why I’m a good fit for certain clients and not a great fit for others. That’s why I work well with really great teams and not as good with teams that underperform. I just cannot tolerate mediocrity. It’s not in my DNA.

The “Cranky” Misconception

I get a lot of shit from a lot of people all the time. “Oh he’s cranky” or “he’s grouchy.” Everybody who knows me knows that’s not the case. The case is: I push myself hard and I push other people hard because I know they want to achieve greatness. I am there every step of the way with them if you truly want to achieve greatness. Excellence has to be a requirement. Urgency has to be there. This isn’t about being difficult. This isn’t about having impossible standards. This is about caring enough to not accept mediocre work from people who are capable of excellent work. When someone is capable of greatness and they’re delivering mediocrity, that’s not me being cranky. That’s me holding them to their own potential. The people who get it, who are also pushing themselves, who also refuse to settle? They don’t think I’m cranky. They think I’m a partner. They think I’m someone who gives a shit about the work we’re doing together. There’s a difference.

Sustainability Isn’t the Opposite of Excellence

Of course everybody needs a day and a break. That’s not what this is about. Not grinding 18 hours a day, seven days a week for 20 years. That’s unsustainable and stupid. This is just being consistently great at what you do when you’re doing it and knowing how to manage your time and your schedule. You don’t have to be great at anything 16 hours a day. That is unsustainable long-term. But if you’re having fun and you’re not burning out, why aren’t you working on something that matters? Yes we all get dragged to things we don’t want to do or have obligations we don’t actually want to participate in. I’ve made a career out of avoiding those things because honestly, I found them to be a waste of time. In today’s world there are tools you can take on the go. Some people watch TV when they’re somewhere they don’t want to be. I’m reading code from my phone remotely to my desktop. To each their own. The goal isn’t endless hours. The goal is doing work that matters, doing it well, and not wasting time on things that don’t move you forward. That’s sustainable. That’s how you build a 20-year career without burning out. You don’t grind yourself into dust. You just refuse to phone it in.

What This Means in Practice

So what does “excellence as a requirement” actually look like day-to-day? It means I don’t start projects I can’t finish well. If I don’t have the time, the resources, or the focus to do something right, I don’t start it. Better to say no than to deliver garbage. It means I push back on bad ideas. Even when they come from people I respect. Even when it’s uncomfortable. If something isn’t going to work, I say so. Not to be difficult. Because building the wrong thing excellently is still a waste. It means I’m willing to throw away work that isn’t good enough. I’ve rewritten entire sections of code because I realized the approach was wrong. I’ve scrapped designs that worked but weren’t elegant. That’s not perfectionism. That’s refusing to ship mediocrity. It means I hold clients to their own goals. If a client says they want to be the best in their market but they’re not willing to do the work, I call that out. Not to be a jerk. Because I’m not interested in helping someone pretend to care about excellence. It means I’m honest about my own limitations. I know what I’m great at. I know what I’m not. I don’t fake expertise I don’t have. I bring in people who are better than me at things I’m weak at. That’s how you build excellent work: you don’t try to do everything yourself, you surround yourself with people who are also excellent.

For People Who Want This

If you’re reading this and thinking “I want that drive, how do I get it?” I don’t know if I have a good answer. I don’t think you can manufacture it. I think it’s either in you or it’s not. But I do think you can cultivate it. You can make choices that reinforce it. You can stop tolerating mediocre work from yourself. You can stop making excuses for why you’re not where you want to be. You can look at the gap between where you are and where you want to be and decide that the gap is unacceptable. Not in a self-hating way. In a “this is the standard and I’m going to meet it” way. You can stop surrounding yourself with people who think wanting to be great is weird or obsessive or unhealthy. Find people who push you. Find people who don’t accept your excuses. Find people who are also striving for something beyond just getting by. You can start small. One project. One piece of work. Do it better than you’ve ever done it before. Not for recognition. Not for approval. For yourself. To prove you can. Then do it again. That’s how it starts. That’s how it becomes a habit. That’s how it becomes who you are instead of something you’re trying to be.

The Bottom Line

Excellence is a requirement. Not a nice-to-have. Not a someday goal. Not something you aim for when you have time. A requirement. If that sounds intense, good. It should. This isn’t for everyone. And that’s fine. But if you’re someone who’s tired of mediocre work, tired of teams that underperform, tired of the gap between what you’re capable of and what you’re actually doing, then maybe this resonates. Maybe you’re wired the same way I am. And if you are, stop apologizing for it. Stop letting people make you feel like demanding excellence is a character flaw. It’s not. It’s a standard. Hold yourself to it. Hold the people around you to it. Build things that matter and build them right. Everything else is just noise.