What Do You Remember About High School?
Thinking back to your school days, do you remember a really important lesson you learned from a wise teacher?
In my high school woodworking class, I learned that good enough wasn’t good enough.
In that woodworking class, for any project we undertook, we had to get permission from the teacher before we could put the stain and varnish on any object we were building. I would constantly sand and sand to ensure it was ready for the next step. I would then approach the teacher and ask for permission, confirming if it was ready to be stained and varnished. And the teacher would constantly ask back to me:
“Are you satisfied with it?”
I hated it when the teacher said that because it was ambiguous and I wish he would just explicitly mention that good enough wasn’t good enough. I would go back for another week of sanding and more sanding.
That lesson stuck with me and invaluably helped me in my business.
That standard is notably becoming more important today because the bar for everything is constantly being raised. People's expectations are not going down; they're going up. Click To Tweet
In a lot of aspects of people’s lives, expectations aren’t being met. Thus, the more you raise your bar, the more you understand that good enough isn’t good enough in your business or personal life.
I want to challenge you to ask yourself these questions to ensure you are stretching yourself:
- What can I do to really exceed expectations and delight my family, friends, clients, or customers?
- How can I go the extra mile?
- How can I exceed ALL expectations with my service?
Until next time, make it a great week.
