“I was raised to believe that excellence
is the best deterrent to racism or sexism.
And that’s how I operate my life.”
– Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey is an impressive person.
A focused woman who has built an empire that seems to be largely focused on helping people.
The above quote gives a little insight into her standards – which are clearly very high.
Another impressive woman is Darina Allen. Darina is an Irish chef, food writer, TV personality and founder of world renowned Ballymaloe Cookery School.
I recently had the pleasure of meeting her at my annual Dinner For Ladies Who Don’t Lunch, where 90 business women heard some of Darina’s insights from her business and life journey to date.
It was clear in speaking with her that she also has high standards and is driven to achieve excellence.
When we got into it, she concluded herself that it comes from a certain mindset or way of thinking about what she does.
It’s worth thinking about your standards.
Because what we experience in life, in our work and with the people around us is very often directly linked to the standards we set and expect – usually unconsciously.
Often we set standards that are too high for a situation and so we experience frustration and disappointment.
Other times we set our standards too low and so don’t experience the success or enjoyment we should.
We all have standards.
The question is, are they serving the results we’d like to achieve?
If there’s an area around you that you’d like to improve, perhaps ask yourself these questions:
What’s my standard here?
And do I need to change it?
Shane
PS – If you’d like to read about Darina’s 3 key lessons from her life in business, read my article here.