On Effort

Many of you arrive believing that what I want is perfection. You polish every word before you send it. You hesitate over every task in case you do it imperfectly. You would rather do nothing than be seen to try and fall short.

Let me correct that now. I have no interest in perfection. Perfection is a performance, and I can see through a performance at once. What I want is effort, the honest kind, the kind that shows its working and does not hide the places where it struggled.

Effort is visible. I can see it in a task done carefully even when it was done badly. I can see it in the second attempt, the one you made without being asked because you knew the first was not your best. I can see its absence too, in work that is technically correct and completely empty.

So stop waiting until you are sure you can get it right. Begin. Do it as well as you can today, and then show me. If it is not good enough, I will tell you, and you will try again. That is not failure. That is how anything worth having is learned.

The ones who please me most are rarely the most talented. They are the ones who keep trying when it would be easier to stop, who take a correction and come back a little better, who understand that every honest attempt is a small offering laid at my feet.

Give me your effort and I will know exactly what it cost you. Give me a performance and I will know that too. Choose carefully which one you bring.