What is the difference between excellence and perfectionism? By definition, it's the quality of being outstanding or extremely good, where as perfectionism, is a doctrine holding that religious, moral, social, or political perfection is attainable, especially the theory that human moral / spiritual perfection should be attained. Pierce has been on both sides of this conversation and provides a useful framework to understand what excellence looks like, and how to use it to be build a more impactful business. He talks through useful industry standard and gives a framework for helping teams build a culture of excellence at the end of the show.

This episode covers the topics of standard-bearers, excellence, perfectionism, military, Gibson guitars, mental health, prayer, Joseph in the Bible, freedom, the anointing, and consumer-focused values.

Get Pierce's book Calling: Awaken to The Purpose of Your Work

https://www.amazon.com/Calling-Awaken-Purpose-Your-Work/dp/0830780734/

Welcome to lunchbreak a special weekly series of the eternal

entrepreneur that gives you bite-size pieces of wisdom on how to do the

function of faith and business.

Each episode unpacks, a short, actionable topic you can put into practice this week.

Let's get into it.

Hello and welcome back to the eternal entrepreneur podcast.

I am Pierce Brantley cohost of the show.

And today we're going to explore the topic of excellence.

And I say explore, because I think there's a spectrum that we as Christian leaders

get into and we can have opposing ideas.

And there is a biblical standard of excellence and there's a worldly standard

of excellence and one will run us dry.

The other will actually, I believe, bring on the mantle of God's anointing

on your life to carry something that you couldn't carry before.

And that's why I want to talk about it because I think most of the time.

We place ourselves in the realm of workaholism and perfectionism to big

isms, but effectively what it means is we are in pursuit of something at all

costs, and that cost costs us something.

It costs the soul something, whereas biblical excellent.

Jesus says my yoke is easy.

My burden is light.

He is carrying something, but what he's carrying he's equipped to carry.

When we try to pursue excellence in an area that we are not equipped to carry.

What it does is it becomes a yoke of bondage and bondage may seem like.

A, a big word, spiritual word, especially as it relates to

excellence in the workplace.

But the reality is if you are carrying something that is not I don't want to

say it goes as far as to say willed, but breathed on like a fire from God, then

something is going to happen to your soul.

You're going to get agitated with a lack of excellence.

You are going to get into the nitty gritty.

You're going to become a control, a fanatic, and you were going to obsess

about details that actually are at a detriment to the morale of your business,

to your employees, to your family life.

And so we want to adjust that.

So there were two healthy types.

Of excellence that you can aspire to.

And by the way, I don't think either one of these are

wrong, they're just different.

And I want to explore both of them.

So we can think about how to take a chiropractic adjustment

to your business as it relates to building something really good.

So the first type of excellence is a standard.

Someone who is a standard keeper or business.

That is a standard keeper is all about meeting the

industrial mark of the business.

So there's a status quo and not a bad set of squirrel just or actual status quo that

is normal in your sphere of influence.

So in the auto industry, for instance, if you're getting maintenance done on your

vehicle the standard, the high standard is they're going to give you a free car ride.

They are going to, give you coffee or some nice drink while you're there.

They are going to, have a concierge that's going to, take care of

your car while you're there.

And you're not ever going to have to get into the details of

your car, getting maintained.

That's the standard in the industry.

And so anything less than that is falling short of the standard,

but that is the standard itself.

That any new car maintenance business, if they were to get into that space

would need to quickly move towards, because if they're not doing that,

then they're not meeting expectations.

So that's one type of excellence, which is just meeting the standard.

And, there's a lot of books out there.

Some of them that I love around being innovative and being disruptive.

And everything else.

And there is a place for all of that.

There was also a place for meeting expectations in a way that people expect

and are delighted by and that's okay.

Not everything needs to be innovative.

Then there is a second type of excellence and this is the type of

excellence that transcends what I believe is simply Working in the flesh.

And that is to be a standard bearer, not just a standard keeper.

So in the military, a standard bearer is someone who carries a flag who

runs out ahead of their platoon or the group of soldiers, and is basically

saying that they're claiming ground and being a front lead for that group.

Standard bear is going out ahead of where everyone else is going underneath

the flag that they are carrying and they are fighting for, to be a standard

bearer means to redefine and to take new territory redefined what it means to be

excellent and to provide good service.

In a space and also means to go into new territory that hasn't

yet been conquered or claimed.

And it goes without saying that you need the first, before you can go

into the second, if you are simply a pioneer, but you have no skillset,

then what you're gonna do is just end up tearing up the land you're in.

You need more than.

But a standard bear's able to go fully equipped into the unknown,

take new territory and define new standards that are good for them.

Good for the industry.

And it's how I think really powerful brands are made.

So a few years back, I was at the Gibson factory and I think

it was Nashville or Memphis.

It was Memphis.

Yes.

And what was really cool about that factory other than the fact that, I'm

a guitar nerd, but towards the end of the tour, they wanted out this huge

blue dumpster and ended the dumpster.

You could see over the top of it were just piles and piles, countless piles.

Of finished guitars in the dumpster.

And we asked about that.

We're like, what?

What's wrong with those guitars?

And the tour guide goes is nothing wrong with the guitars.

He said, every single one of them plays just fine.

He said our standard here at Gibson.

He said, if there is one speck of dust on the paint, if there was one malaligned.

Not on the adjusters, if there is a grain of a knot that shows up

or a grain of color in the wood that looks wrong on the neck, he

said the entire guitar is useless.

We throw the entire thing away.

He said, and we're so strict about the.

That he said, even if an employee were to go in and take one of these

perfectly playable guitars out of the dumpster, he said they get fired.

He said that we have a zero tolerance policy on.

Again, perfectly playable guitars.

Absolutely useless from the perspective of a standard of a

standard bare in the industry.

The same thing is true of Mercedes.

I saw this cool documentary years ago and Mercedes was going

through their final point check.

And they're not the only ones that do this, but between the

outside panel, Of the car.

They have a, I think it's called a micron measurement tool and I'm

probably going to get that wrong, but effectively they measure down to, I

want to say it was two millimeters of distance between two outside panels.

We're talking about the decorative panels on the car.

If there is more than two millimeters of gap between the

two panels, the entire thing is.

To get rid of it or they go and fix the problem because the standard for

Mercedes is so much higher than a lot of the other vehicles in the industry.

Again, they're not the only ones that do this, but if there was more than

a two millimeter difference and you might be saying the difference between

two millimeters and three millimeters, is that even like noticeable from

the naked eye, maybe not in one area.

If you think of one thing going wrong in one part of the car, then it says

something about the entire vehicle.

It says something about the standard of integrity that relates to how

the company wants to produce things.

And I don't think this applies to all Christian businesses, but

I think often we can operate.

What we think is the guise of grace.

Meaning, we want to provide good service, but ultimately, we need to be flexible

if things don't go exactly right.

We need to be understanding about our own employees and everything else.

And that's true.

The, in that, the development of the person and the love for the person

should pre emanate everything we do.

But when you think about being a standard.

And you think about these two companies, Gibson and Mercedes

one speck of dust ruins, the whole guitar, one millimeter disqualifies

the entire car from being sold.

When you think about what it means to be a standard bearer, it means to pioneer

something in a space and to hold a mantle that other companies aren't doing.

And these details are not just for the sake of doing it.

Perfectionism gets obsessed with fixing things for the sake of fixing them.

You ever met someone who's like a die hard perfectionist and

you go what is the end in this?

And most of the time it's fixing it.

It is the end baking it.

Perfect is the end and of itself.

Perfectionism for its own sake is not actually that great of a thing to aspire.

We know it's abusive.

We actually talk about this and calling awaken to the purpose of your work.

If you say, why did my best, and my best is perfectionism.

That's that's your standard.

But that's your own personal standard, the best companies in the world.

They're the best in the world because of a comparison related to something else.

So you can't just say did my best and it's actually the best.

Like you, can't, that's a self fulfilling prophecy.

You have to go outside of your circle in order to have any standard

at all, a personal standard.

That gives you personal integrity does not actually do anything

for the market competitively.

All right.

Rant done, but being a standard bare.

These companies that, that obsess about details, what they're obsessing about

is not details for the sake of details.

It is creating something that is special to, for the sake of the

consumer that otherwise wouldn't exist.

And some of you, if you're going to, you're going to hate on

me in the comments, I've been as I've been as, as another.

Company out there and they are super flashy and they got tons

of mother of Pearl and tons of decoration and everything else.

Their guitars simply aren't as good as.

As Gibson guitars they're best you could.

The most money you could spend on the best Ivan as guitar would fall flat

compared to a Gibson and fall five compared to a lot of other guitars too.

But that's beside the point.

And the reason is because the cumulative effect of the details

themselves are unto something greater.

They are the sum of the whole, so to speak.

What does this mean for us as a kingdom business leaders

as Christian entrepreneurs?

I believe everyone listening to this right now that God has given you something, he

might be calling it to mind right now, or maybe you should spend some time praying

about it that you are a standard bearer.

Meaning God has given you a skillset and an aptitude that isn't normal

and what he is calling you to is to develop that out and then eventually

move into being a standard bearer.

Someone who takes new territory, who goes into the unknown and sets the standard

for the rest of the industry for the rest of the competitive landscape, the

best companies do not compete on price.

You think of like Peter Drucker's awesome theory and everything else.

They don't compete on price.

And I would say the best company.

Don't even compete directly with other companies.

It's not a competition because what they're in pursuit of is

not beating the competition.

What they're in pursuit of is the pursuit of excellence and that

upward shift that aspiring shift moves them farther and farther away

from the quote unquote competition.

It doesn't even become a competition because we're not even talking

about the same thing anymore.

And that's my encouragement to you as a business leader is to get so good

under the building out of your talent or your business acumen, and then being so

conscious of what God has given you as a gift of anointing, that when you rest in

those things for so long before, You're not even in the same plane field anymore.

And that isn't just to your own benefit, your customers benefit the industry

benefits the landscape of consumerism in that area benefits because of your

pursuit of standard bearing excellence.

There's also a spiritual component to this as well.

And this is the idea of holiness.

Now you need to hold these with a special kind of, openhandedness

because what I don't want you to do is get religious in this, but

holiness is about being set apart.

Jimmy Lynn go listen to that episode as a fantastic book and talk about what it

means to be a Christian in the pursuit.

Of holiness and that should have a meaningful impact

on my life as a believer.

But beyond that,

the recognition that I have been set apart should also set

apart the way in which I do.

Looking at the life of Joseph, the Bible over and over again, says he had favor

in crazy scenarios in life and it's because he lived his life differently.

And that had an impact on the things that he did on the actual things

that he did in his working day.

And so the pursuit of holiness should actually pair have a parallel.

To my pursuit of excellence.

Now being excellent does not make me holy.

That is not what I'm saying, but I'm saying in the heart of the believer,

there shouldn't be a separation between church and state, so to speak, meaning

the things that I do, pragmatically and the things that my heart rests in.

Shouldn't be different.

There should be a melding of the spirit man.

And the working man together.

So to sell up two types of excellence, the standard keeper and the standard

bearer, you need both mindsets, but one if done well, eventually I

believe does graduate into the other for those who are super achievers.

And he a gram threes with the do not think that.

One is better than the other.

You can't have one without the other.

And in some ways, in some areas it's best to know that you actually

meeting the standard before going and creating your own.

That's just some practical business advice.

So action.

It's a lunch break.

I want you to prayer fully consider maybe do this as a workshop with.

You can do this in 30 minutes with a little bit of prayer and a little

bit of coffee whiteboard this out.

And it is where are we not meeting the standard so we can

call this the standard meters.

That's one column.

Then the other is where do we think we're standard keepers,

meaning we are holding the.

And you need to have some areas again, where you're holding the line and then

where are we going to be standard bearers?

And I believe this has a spiritual connotation to it.

You should not be innovating without intimacy.

We've talked about this before standard bears, when it Toms to innovation, the

Christian does not innovate without intimacy, meaning I don't get anything

without a prayer full consideration.

I let the Lord lead me in the direction that I should go.

And that ended up itself is unto innovation in my business.

So go through these three columns standard Mader standard keeper, standard

bearer, and identify analytically specifically what the landscape of

excellent looks like for your business.

So that you can make prayerful decisions about where you can improve

and where you can have greater impact with your customers in your industry,

anywhere that you're touching.

All right.

My friends is great talking to you.

I hope this was a helpful exercise for you and for your business.

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That's all for now, have a great week and don't forget to think.

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