Towards Excellence

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We live in a time of enormous technological progress, with inventions that surpass our imagination and most certainly, with instant global communication.

Imagination, creativity, ingenuity and innovation in this century have facilitated human existence to the greatest degree possible and have astoundingly improved living conditions.

Extraordinary advances have been made in medicine, satellites have been launched into space in an effort to better understand the universe, and even before these events, traveling time between countries as well as continents became dramatically reduced. With just a simple “click,” a video conference can unite families, friends and even big cyber business negotiations in a virtual embrace.

This century is most certainly worthy of the admiration and recognition of the people who have made it possible for humanity to advance, excel and reach the height of its splendor of development.

Excellence viewed from this perspective is undoubtedly the distinctive mark of this century.

However, in contradiction with and in spite of these extraordinary advances witnessed daily, there is a part of our daily lives that has not been affected by the example of the excellence evidenced in the substantial changes in this century.

Therefore, we sadly observe and even experience the intolerable bad medical practices that have caused so many unfortunate events and have even caused the death of loved ones.

Many of us have had to conduct business in public offices as well as in private enterprises where leading edge technology is honorably encouraged in order to serve customers with high quality standards. Nevertheless, our experiences have been chaotic when systems have not functioned according to the way they have been publicized or even worse, when the personnel in these places have not provided us with proper or effective attention.

On the other hand, the more we study and try to understand the laws of the universe, the less we understand ourselves as human beings and we increasingly experience broken relationships.

Additionally, the easier it is to widen our public life through social networks, the less effort we make to strengthen our personal and family relationships, and we end up experiencing failed relationships.

This is precisely the paradox of this century. It is the age of technological development, telecommunications and social networks versus the age of weakened human relationships and family disintegration.

Businesses loudly proclaim high quality standards from the perspective of their advanced digital technology, but they forget that more important than their perfectly developed systems with telephone exchanges, call centers and digital banks, etc. are human resources that should receive special attention, care, encouragement and development because it is human resource and not technology per se that is the real motor that drives businesses towards true excellence.

In the same way, it is in the nucleus of the family where every member needs to experience love, comprehension, support and a sincere embrace, even in the midst of failure, so a family can experience healing and restoration and so every human being can set off on his or her journey as a person seeking excellence.

There are so many different areas in which the practice of excellence is implicit, and there are many more aspects that need to be discussed regarding this topic.

Every month, I will share stories, my personal experiences and those of close friends plus some advice and recommendations along with an invitation to share moments of reflection and learning for a life that pursues excellence.

Welcome and thanks for joining me in this journey towards excellence!

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“Excellence is doing ordinary things, extraordinarily well.”

John W. Gardner