“You can’t manufacture greatness with one swing of the bat, you’ll have to take many swings,” Loren Ridinger.  This goes back to the idea of eating the whale in one bite.  So often we are led to believe that greatness happens because we think it will, that it happens overnight.  The key to becoming great is to become what we think is great.  Adapting takes time.  Learning to trust ourselves takes time.  Learning to become an expert with consistent results or to be someone who can handle the curveballs takes time.  It’s all part of the process.  We need to learn to wear the hats (or whatever article you prefer) with a degree of confidence before we can state that we know everything.  To that end, there is also a necessary degree of humility needed because we must always remember to learn.  We don’t know what we don’t know and unless we are willing to be a perpetual student, even of those things we think we know to the core, we will cut ourselves off from the opportunity to experience that greatness.

Another secret to greatness is that greatness is in the nuance.  It is in the detail.  We don’t want to get ourselves so caught up in the detail that we never take action, that is true, but it is also true that when we take the time to notice the details and all the things that create something (or an experience), that is where we shine.  It’s the little details that show we have gone the extra mile without taking another step.  That’s key because when we take that extra step, we show we understand.  We’ve lost the art of understanding in this world through the very desire to be understood.  We are so eager to be seen and heard that we have forgotten we are looking for connection which only comes from understanding.  And understanding only comes from connection.  We are on the same team and we all have the capacity to be great.  We’ve fostered an environment of competition rather than collaboration because we fear there isn’t enough for all of us to be successful.  Consumerism thrives on competition-life thrives on love.  We are not a commodity, we need love because when we feel safe in being loved, that is when we have the courage to take as many swings as we need to to become great.

The world needs greatness.  It demands greatness from every one of us.  We just mistook the idea of being great for the idea that we all had to be great in the same way—or that being great meant one thing.  We need greatness to develop and evolve.  We need greatness to feel joy.  But to get to greatness, we need to practice and we need to be safe enough to learn, we need to be loved enough to be encouraged, we need to be humble enough to be willing to be a novice, we need to be strong enough to keep going.  Learning doesn’t really happen by osmosis—it happens through action and application of what we know.  What inspires greatness in us?  What makes us feel great?  What makes us come alive where we forget where we are at because we are so engrossed in what we are doing that time doesn’t exist?  The world needs people who have come alive into their sense of self.  It’s our job to notice each other and to elicit the greatness out of each other.  Practice might hurt, a perceived failure might hurt, but nothing hurts more than holding our greatness inside of us.  Don’t be afraid to be vulnerable in greatness, either for fear of success or failure. Just allow and understand that it all teaches us.  Both sides, good and bad, show us what we need to do.  Learn to be great by learning to be entirely who we are. It’s up to us to welcome that version of ourselves.