“Approve the things that are excellent.” Philippians 1:10

In the words of Aristotle: “Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” There is a reason why mediocrity is so popular: excellence is hard. If it was easy, everyone would be exceptional. The very nature of excellence is to excel, to be better than ordinary. A more specific definition is this: “Excellence is the discipline of consistently performing towards the upper range of your talent and skill beyond accepted levels of mediocrity.” From this truth, we understand three things about excellence.

First, excellence is a discipline. It does not come natural. Excellence doesn’t “just happen,” it is a condition we force upon ourselves: a discipline. Merriam-Webster defines discipline as “training that corrects, molds, or perfects the mental faculties or moral character.”  

Discipline is the athlete who spends hours and hours in the gym perfecting certain routines and motions. Discipline is the student reading and rereading, memorizing and recalling new facts and information to master a certain subject. Discipline is the musician who rehearses hours on end to train her fingers in the proper motions. In each of these examples, the one in training is forcing himself or herself to act outside of their ordinary boundaries. To do something that is above normal or beyond ordinary to them. This is the beginning of excellence: to push beyond ordinary and consistently force ourselves beyond what is easy or comfortable. Those who cannot do that are destined to meander in maze of mediocrity.

Second, excellence is to consistently perform towards the upper range of your talent and skill. In other words, excellence pushes your limits. It stretches you. It forces you to do and be better.
This is not to suggest that excellence requires perfection. Rather, excellence is about giving your best. Perfection, on the other hand, is about being flawless, it’s about delivering a faultless, perfect product. Excellence isn’t about the product, it’s about the performance. It’s not about winning, it’s about giving your absolute, best effort—performing towards the upper range of your skill. The reality is, one can play his or her best game, they can give their best effort, but still not have best score; in fact, they could lose. So, excellence is not about first place, second place or even third place. Excellence is about work ethic.

Moreover, it’s about consistent work ethic. Anyone can do their best, once in a while, especially when someone is watching them. But true excellence is what happens in the dark, when there’s no spotlight and no one is watching. It is a sense of responsibility that obligates you to offer your absolute best effort in every situation regardless of who is watching, how much you are being paid or who is going to know about it. Excellence says, “It is up to me to put forth an effort that makes a difference, and if I do not perform at my absolute best, then I am responsible for the failure that results.”

Third, excellence is consistent performance beyond accepted levels of mediocrity. It refuses to settle for ordinary, even when ordinary is the prevailing mindset of the people around us.

There will always be chickens who try to discourage the eagle from flying. Friends that don't help you climb will want you to crawl. This is what average; mediocre people do; they try to increase their own sense of worth by diminishing the worth of others. They resent those who excel because it exposes their own lack of excellence. This is why eagles—if they are going to soar—can’t fly with chickens.

At some point, your pursuit of excellence will require you to dissociate with certain people—especially people who believe mediocre is “good enough.” Colin Powell, retired four-star General and US Secretary of State is quoted as saying, “The less you associate with some people, the more your life will improve. It’s a simple but true fact of life; we become like those with whom we most closely associate, for the good and the bad. Any time you tolerate mediocrity in others, it increases your mediocrity.

An important discipline of successful people is discretion in their choice of associates. They don’t surround themselves with people that simply make them feel good by affirming their status quo. They surround themselves with possibility thinkers—people that challenge them. If you are serious about the next level, stop associating with people who are aiding and abetting your mediocrity. Yes, we need encouragement when we fail; yes, we need friends who will inspire us to get up when we are down. But true inspiration and encouragement should never make an eagle feel content about living in a chicken coop, it should challenge him to see his own potential and God-given abilities. It should inspire him to get up and try again, to do better, to flap his wings harder, to fly longer, to expect more from himself until he achieves what God has created him to do.

(This is an excerpt from Gregg Johnson’s newest book, Upward! Taking Your Life to the Next Level. Look for it soon on Amazon and www.greggtjohnson.com)
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MY RESPONSE TO THE DALLAS SHOOTINGS AND BLACK LIVES MATTER PROTESTS

Despite my current travels in Africa with limited access to TV and internet news, I’ve seen the recent American tragedies on CNN, BBC and others. The tragic deaths of Philandro Castile and Alton Sterling and the more recent horror of five murdered police officers along with the six injured in Dallas during a Black Lives Matters protest have become leading news stories around the world.

The grief and anger we all feel for these senseless tragedies are beyond words. It is overwhelming, and understandably so. We feel the need to cry, to shout, to vent and to blame someone, to try and make sense of it all and hold someone accountable. These reactions are not only reasonable, they are righteous and speak to a deep seated sense of justice that every sane and civilized person should have.

Unfortunately, these feelings, as powerful as they are, can drive us too far. The anger, the fear, the pain, if left unchecked can become a toxic resentment pulling us into the very injustice we claim to oppose. It can turn fair minded people into racists and loving Christians into callous, judgmental hatemongers.
Of course, the news reports with their 24/7 replaying of the events and the politicians with their polarizing speeches only pick the scab and make it harder to heal. The media and the politics provide an endless supply of both targets and ammunition that pull people apart and make enemies of friends. Social media is even worse. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have provided a relentless flood of hateful insults, unfair accusations and misinformation meant to manipulate the small minded and control the uninformed. Of course we support our police. And of course we believe black lives - and all lives matter. We are tearing our country apart, and we need to stop.

We need to stop the politicizing, stop the name calling and stop the blaming. The fact is the deaths of the police officers in Dallas were not the fault of the NRA, Black Lives Matter, Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. And for that matter, we need to stop all the simpleminded stereotyping. All African Americans are not hoodlums, all white people are not racists, all cops are not bad, and not everything that happens is the result of some political agenda. 

Sometimes, bad things just happen; and tragically, sometimes really bad and really horrible things happen. 

We live in a fallen, broken world – made up of fallen, broken people. And, unfortunately, those broken people get guns, sometimes they get bombs, sometimes they get planes, and they do horrible, evil things. Sometimes they do it with malice and forethought. Sometimes, they use really bad judgment and make horrible mistakes. But that doesn’t mean that everyone who wears the same uniform or has the same color skin will act just like them. 

What it does mean is that we are all broken. All of us. All of us have a nature that has a twisted bent toward selfish, uncaring and even cruel behavior. It’s why God calls us sinners and why Jesus died on the cross: we are all without hope outside of God’s incredible act of love on the cross.

But when faced with the evil that men do, is it appropriate to get angry? Absolutely. Is it okay to protest? Absolutely. Should we raise our voices and make our opinions known? Absolutely. But there is a right way and a wrong way to do so. 

The right way is with respect and honor toward others. There may not be agreement, but there should be respect. Every person should be treated as a valuable creation of God, made in His image. 

The right way is in a spirit of love that does unto others as you would have them do to you. You don’t have to “like” them, you may even be offended by those with whom you disagree, but your own personal integrity and sense of excellence should demand that you respect and treat them with honor.

The right way is to remain calm and controlled, not hyped up and angry and ready for a fight.

The right way is to focus on solutions, not look for an argument—to work together, not take up sides. 

The right way is to find common ground, not treat those who oppose as bigots and boors—to listen to one another, not shout each other down. 

The right way is to have conversations that hear and respect each other’s opinions, not lower ourselves to blaming and name calling. We all have opinions—very strong opinions, but we must not allow our passion to turn into poison. We cannot allow our truth to become toxic. If we can’t do this, then we become part of the problem. We become another voice of condemnation and accusation pulling our nation apart and doing the enemy’s work for him.

If you are a Christ follower, you will obviously be affected by these recent, tragic events. However, there is a right way and a wrong way to respond. Be sure that the response you show does not rise unchecked, out of broken, human emotions. Rather, be sure that it is tempered by the Spirit of God within you and the Word of God which is your guide. 

The days in which we live will only get darker and darker. These are the times when the light of Christ within us must shine the brightest.

Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. – Matthew 5:16
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The story is told of a boy who found an eagle’s egg on the forest floor. Unable to return the egg to its mother, he put it in the nest of a prairie chicken who accepted it as one of her own. Eventually the eagle hatched from its shell and grew up the community of little prairie chickens.

All his life, the eagle believed he was just another chicken. Sure, he looked different, walked different and sounded different, but that didn’t matter. He knew he was a chicken and so he did what all good chickens do. He scavenged the dirt for insects and seeds. He clucked and crackled and twitched his large white head and hid from the predators above. On occasion he would flutter his wings and hover a few feet off the ground. But no more than that, for that’s how prairie chickens were supposed to fly.

After several years among the chickens, the eagle, now much older, happened to see a magnificent bird flying far above him in the sky. With admiration he watched as this beautiful creature seemed to hang among the clouds with graceful majesty on the powerful currents of wind.

“What an extraordinary bird,” the eagle-chicken said to his fellow prairie chickens. “What is it?” “That is an eagle, the king of birds,” they replied. “But you could never be like him. You’re a chicken!” they told him. So the earth-bound eagle never gave it another thought. He lived the rest of his life and died, thinking he was nothing more than a chicken.

What a tragedy for the eagle. He was designed for greatness, built to soar—to rule the heavens. But he never got off the ground. Instead, he spent his life scratching in the dust for bugs and kernels, never even dreaming of soaring above the mountains.

It’s the story of so many—not eagles, but people. It’s what happens when we settle for a life among the chickens. We accept limitations where God never intended they should be and miss the greater purpose for which we were created.
Perhaps it’s your story. Perhaps you feel as though you were meant for something greater—a purpose far greater than what you have achieved. You have a yearning to excel beyond ordinary and to surpass a mediocre existence that has kept you grounded, dwelling among the chickens.

Daniel the Prophet is described as one who “distinguished himself above the governors and satraps, because an excellent spirit was in him.” (Daniel 6:3) He was an eagle among chickens.

He lived in Babylon. In 610 BC, he was taken from his homeland of Jerusalem and forced to live among the pagans. In Daniel chapter one, we see him refusing to defile himself with the king’s delicacies and negotiated the approval of a diet more consistent with his Jewish convictions. The result was a healthier mind, a heartier countenance and the favor of his handlers. Although he had been forced from his nest, to live among chickens, this eagle refused to diminish his identity to that of a chicken.

Over the course of his life, the eagle would soar. He demonstrated excellence in everything he did. As a result, he was distinguished with such significance that even “the king gave thought to setting him over the whole realm.” (Daniel 6:3) The lesson is clear. In an environment where the prevailing attitude is mediocrity; excellence brings promotion. It will take you to the next level.

Daniel’s excellence rose from a sense about himself. He knew he wasn’t a Babylonian, he knew he was an Israelite, a son of David, a child of Abraham, a member of God’s covenant people. From that awareness of his purpose he could never accept being a Babylonian. In Daniel 1:8 we read, “Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king's delicacies, nor with the wine which he drank…” It was not that he thought himself to be better, he just knew that he was created for a specific purpose. And it was this sense of purpose that empowered him to stand apart.

When you know what your purpose is, you can never settle for being something other than what you know you were created to be. The king’s delicacies will seem repulsive. On the other hand, people who have no sense of purpose will eat anything. They spend their lives trying to conform to some idea of greatness they have seen in others—or have been told by others that it is what they should do. Even if that to which they aspire is a noble thing, even if it is an achievement highly regarded and brings fame and fortune, if it does not align with one’s purpose, it’s nothing more than an eagle trying to be a chicken.

​(This is an excerpt from Gregg Johnson’s newest book, Upward! Taking Your Life to the Next Level. Look for it soon on Amazon and www.greggtjohnson.com)