6TH MEETING: EXCELLENCE (READINGS)

Excellence is a process, a commitment and a challenge.
“Excellence is the gradual results of always striving to do better.” --Coach Pat Riley

Riley has served as the head coach of five championship teams and an assistant coach to another. He recently won the 2006 NBA Championship with the Miami Heat. Prior to his tenure in Miami, he served as head coach for the Los Angeles Lakers and the New York Knicks. He also played for the Los Angeles Lakers' championship team in 1972, which brings his personal total to seven NBA titles. He is also known for leading LA Lakers into back to back championship (1987-1988), the first team in 20 years to repeat as champions. Pat is widely regarded as one of the greatest NBA coaches of all time. (Wikipedia.org)

“I do the very best I know – the very best I can; and I mean to keep on doing so until the end.” --US President Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States of America. As a child, he has to struggle for living and for learning. His family moved to Indiana when he was eight. He described their place as a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. But even so, he still managed to read, write and decipher. He made extraordinary effort to attain knowledge while working on a farm, splitting rails for fences, and keeping store at New Salem, Illinois. Later he found work as village postmaster and as a surveyor. In 1834 he won election to the state legislature, and after coming across the Commentaries on the Laws of England, he taught himself law. Lincoln became one of the most respected and successful lawyers in Illinois and grew steadily more prosperous. Lincoln served four successive terms in the Illinois House of Representatives, as a representative from Sangamon County, and became a leader of the Whig party in Illinois. In 1858, he ran against Stephen A. Douglas for Senator, however he lost the election, but in debating with Douglas he gained a national reputation that won him the Republican nomination for President in 1860. He was re-elected President in 1864. (Wikipedia.org)

“Excellence is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.” --John W. Gardner

John William Gardner was the former President of Carnegie Corporation, and US Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare under President Lyndon Johnson. He founded two influential national U.S. organizations, the Common Cause and Independent Sector. He also authored numerous books on improving leadership in American society and other subjects. Gardner received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964, (it is one of the two highest civilian awards in the United States and is bestowed by the US President). Gardner’s term as secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, was the height of Johnson’s Great Society domestic agenda. During this tenure, the Department undertook both the huge task of Launching Medicare, which brought quality health care for senior citizens, and oversaw a massive investment in education with the passage of federal role in education and targeted funding to poor students. Gardner also presided the creation of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. (source: Wikipedia.org)

Excellence is a process, a commitment and a challenge.
Pat Riley, Abraham Lincoln and John Gardner have proven us that achieving excellence is not impossible. To be one of NBA greatest coaches of all time is a process. He sees every game like the “Game Seven of the NBA Finals” and he takes every lost as a learning experience to improve his team’s weaknesses. Abraham Lincoln commits himself to deliver the best he knows and the best he can. This makes him one the excellent US Presidents. For John Gardner, excellence can be achieved by doing ordinary things extraordinarily well. It’s not impossible but it’s not easy either. Gardner is able to win this challenge by finding new meaning and reasons in doing every task at hand.

To do good is innate among us. To do better, let’s explore our possibilities. Achieving excellence is a life time commitment to do the best we can.