Execution
Execution is everything. For the vast majority of us, even a very successful life and career will be largely lived in obscurity, invisible to the larger world. It will involve grinding out small wins, the proverbial base hits for decades. In time, home runs and even the grand slams will happen, but mastering the craft and even getting on the field, will be paramount for stepping up to those at-bats and swinging at the ball.
The search for excellence, whether in investing, a relationship, or a career also is closely tied to execution. Excellence is found in repeated successful execution of tasks, muscle movements, and ultimately choices. Excellence is a process, a repeatable system with frequent feedback. In the business world, much of that process can be bought via something called marketing.
Marketing helps companies, and increasingly individuals, build their products and brands in the public eye thus helping achieve brand awareness that in the past was accomplished by repeated successful execution and word-of-mouth. The marketing cycle has increasingly been compressed into seconds with short video reels on platforms like TikTok, YouTube, or....Reels.
Andy Warhol once quipped that "...in the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes." Not only was he 100% correct, but the time element of viral fame is now as compact as 15 seconds. This leads to the question of whether attention to detail and successful execution even matter in a low-attention society. The answer of course is yes, and the following is why.
One of the best quotes on the subject of execution is: "Watch your thoughts for they become your words, watch your words for they become your actions, watch your actions for they become your character, watch your character for it becomes your destiny."
Billions of humans are thinking trillions of thoughts and speaking a corresponding number of words, taking a subsequent number of actions, and becoming certain types of people. Not all seek excellence, but as Adam Smith famously theorized, we are all motivated by our own self-interest. This is what drives economic activity and humanity itself.
As we kick off the New Year and resolutions abound, it is important to remind ourselves of the value of owning our actions, mastering our craft, and focusing on successful execution...whether those wins are on the athletic fields, board rooms, or in the living room execution is everything.
