The Pursuit of Black Belt Excellence

Excellence is being good at a good thing. It's about striving to be the best.

Why just be a leader when you can be a Black Belt Leader and live life with Black Belt Excellence?

It’s a question I’ve been asking people for decades. And, it’s one I’ll continue to ask. Why? Because far too few people today are committed to a life of excellence.

By definition, excellence is the quality of being outstanding or extremely good. It’s the quality of being truly the BEST at something. To me, it is the perpetual striving to become a World Class Master of Who You Are and What You Do!

Who doesn’t want to be the BEST at something?

I recently asked an audience to define excellence, and someone in the crowd said, “Excellence is being good at a good thing.”  Striving to be your best and do your best epitomizes what Black Belt Excellence is all about.

Excellence reflects your character and your values in the way you live your life.

So, why don’t more people pursue Black Belt Excellence as a way of life?

First, it’s no longer demanded nor expected. 

When I was growing up, my parents, school teachers, Sunday school teachers, and other influential people in my life expected me to do my best.  Half-way done was not acceptable, nor was settling for second best. 

My parents, and other influencers in my life understood life would be challenging, success would be fleeting, and to rise to your full potential you were going to have to work for it, strive for it, and become the BEST at something.

Today, this has been lost.

I saw it a decade or so in the martial arts.  When I started competing, everyone competed in the same ring.  Yes, there were beginner, intermediate, and advanced categories, as well as age-banded categories.  But there were only three people recognized, first place, second place, and third place. 

And, all the winners were then pitted against each other in a winner-take-all competition, the Grand Champion’s Trophy.   That trophy was recognition that, on that particular day, you were the best of the best, modeling Black Belt Excellence in forms or fighting. 

Then, the participation medals arrived.  It actually started with the parents who, rather than allow the competiton ring to teach them the value of winning and losing along with the pursuit of excellence, began to complain they were paying money for their children to walk away discouraged and want to quit.

The solution, everyone’s a winner, even if they stink at forms or fighting. 

We saw this spread to track and field, baseball, basketball, football, and soon every team was winning a trophy – just for showing up. 

What is that teaching our children about the relentless pursuit of excellence?

You have to wonder if LeBron James, Michael Phelps, or Serena Williams would be okay with a participation medal at the NBA Finals, the Olympics, or the U.S. Open?

I don’t think so.

But victimization replaced the pursuit of excellence, and we became less as a society as a result.  When you lower the standards, you lower the outcomes.  And when being the best doesn’t matter, and anyone can win a trophy for just showing up, why put in the extra effort to be the BEST when you can settle for less? 

Secondly, we forget that excellence is a learned behavior.  It’s a habit we must continually cultivate within our own lives.

The ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle thought a lot about the pursuit of excellence. He noted, “Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit." 

You can’t become a Black Belt Master of Who You Are and What You Do simply by showing up.  To become World-Class in anything requires a commitment of time, energy, focus, and dedication.  Earl Nightingale is quoted as saying it takes at least 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert at anything.

LeBron James, Serena Williams, Tiger Woods, Bruce Lee, and Tom Brady are household names to many of us as “the best of the best” in their respective fields of competition.  But none of these talented world-class athletes got to the top, and managed to stay at the top for years, simply by showing up.

Early on, they began to develop habits of excellence that refused to settle for less. They showed up early, stayed late, and continually pushed their bodies to perform at a level unrivaled by their peers. They represent the epitome of the relentless pursuit of excellence.

I recently heard Michael Phelps talk about his quest to become the most decorated Olympian in history, with 28 medals to his credit.  His mornings started before dawn, doing laps in the pool, continually honing the skills that would one day lead to 23 gold medals to his credit. 

Phelps swam 13 kilometers (just over 8 miles) a day, six or seven days a week.  On average, he swam at least 80,000 meters (49.7 miles) a week.  On any given day, starting around 7 AM, he would spend 5-6 hours in the pool each day, before spending an hour lifting weights. Each day in the pool, he worked to improve his technique, shaving tenths of a second off of each lap, only to repeat the process the next day and the next.

In the martial arts, we teach the concept of Mushin, literally “No Mind.”  It’s the process of internalizing movements to the point you can execute an offensive or defensive strike, punch, kick, or block without conscious thought.  Michael Phelps used this concept in the pool, Michael Jordan on the basketball court, and Serena Williams used it on the tennis court. 

Lastly, there is no shortcut.

The pursuit of excellence is about getting into the daily habit of demanding more of yourself than others do of you.  It’s understanding that those who are world-class do daily what average or mediocre people do sometimes or not at all.  It’s about not settling for “good enough” and daily striving to become a little bit better at who you are and what you do…and then doing it again the next day. 

This means putting forth your best efforts every day at whatever you put your hands to do, knowing that today’s best effort was only today’s best effort.  

Tomorrow, you will strive to do even better. 

Remember, it’s not about perfection, but persistence in improvement.  The relentless pursuit of excellence is about giving your BEST at what you do, and diligently working to become the BEST at something.

That’s what Black Belt Leaders do. 

Every time I sit down to write a leadership article, like this one, record a podcast, speak from a stage, or train an organization, my goal is to do better at it today than I did the day before.  But I know that can only happen when I’m daily striving to become a better version of who I am and what I do as I commit to ongoing personal growth and development. 

Legendary Coach John Wooden asked a basketball player on his team if he was giving him one hundred percent on the floor.  The player replied, “No coach, I’m only giving you eighty-five percent today but I’ll give you one hundred fifteen percent tomorrow.” 

Coach Wooden called his team around him and told them they could only give him one hundred percent on any given day.  And if they were giving him less than that, they can’t make it up tomorrow.  It was a classic Wooden life lesson on the relentless pursuit of excellence. 

Apparently, his guys got it, as did those who followed.  Coach John Wooden went on to win ten NCAA national championships in twelve years as UCLA head coach, including seven consecutive wins in a row. 

That’s the relentless pursuit of Black Belt Excellence on display on the court.

Now you can’t be excellent at everything, but you can be excellent at a few things. The key to your success in the pursuit of excellence is identifying what you CAN become the best at. 

I could never be a horse jockey, as I’m too tall.  But for four years in a row, before I retired from competition, I was the number one rated competitor in a four-state martial arts circuit.  I found something I was passionate about, committed myself to becoming the best in that, and put in the time and effort to make that happen. 

And from there, I went on to be inducted into three martial arts halls of fame.

Today, I’m a world-class leadership coach and trainer.  I was a 2021 recipient of the President’s Lifetime Achievement Award for Leadership and a 2023 inductee into the Marquis Who’s Who in America

But, I’m not done…as excellence doesn’t rest on yesterday’s accomplishments.  And neither should you.  When excellence is your goal, there is no finish line.

What about you?  What are you already good at you could become great at?  What are you passionate about that you could dedicate your life to become the very BEST at?  Of all the things you can do, what are the 20% of things you’re best at doing?

These are the questions you must answer if you want to discover, develop, and deploy your own unique Black Belt Leader Within.  These questions will help you live your life with Black Belt Excellence as you relentlessly pursue becoming THE World Class Master at your chosen art, profession, craft, or trade. 

And, once you know what you want to become the BEST at, you start the process of becoming.  It starts with your thinking, because as you think you become. So keep learning, growing, maturing, and never stop improving. 

Becoming the BEST is one thing.  Staying the BEST is entirely another. 

That’s the relentless pursuit of Black Belt Excellence.