Excellence is Key

In this episode of the Give It A Purpose podcast, Mr. LA emphasizes the importance of focusing on excellence rather than merely chasing goals. He discusses how excellence is a mindset that requires daily commitment and consistency. By adopting a growth mindset and practicing excellence in every aspect of life, individuals can achieve their goals more effectively. LaGrange encourages listeners to value their contributions and to approach tasks with intention and care, ultimately leading to personal and professional growth.

Takeaways

The focus should be on excellence, not just end goals.
Excellence is doing your best consistently with what you have.
You build success brick by brick through excellence.
A growth mindset is essential for committing to excellence.
How you do anything is how you do everything.
Excellence trains your brain to operate with intention.
Daily practices of excellence lead to long-term success.
Value your contributions and show up with purpose.
Consistency in excellence is key to achieving goals.
Live on purpose and in purpose to fulfill your potential.

Transcript

Jacques LaGrange (00:01.432)
What if we said the goal is not the focus? Let's talk about it next on the Give It A Purpose podcast.

Jacques LaGrange (00:34.252)
Welcome to the given a purpose podcast where we bridge the highs, the lows, the lessons learned through life's journey and filling in the gap. I'm your host as always, Mr. LA. Listen, welcome to another great episode. Listen, I know it's been a while, took a couple of weeks off, had to get away for a little bit, but guess what? I'm back. So.

What I need you guys to do real quick for me before we get started, hit that subscribe button. Let people know about this podcast. You're enjoying it, why not share it with somebody? Duh, come on man. Let's do it. Let's figure it out. All right, man. Just like I said in the intro, what if we...

found out that the focus is not the end goal. Listen, what I realized is that too often we're taught to just focus on the end goal. Like get the job, lose the weight, write the book, hit the number, just go to the next level. But what if I told you the real breakthrough is the standards you hold for how you show up every day.

And let me be clear, let me be abundantly clear. Excellence is not perfection. Excellence is doing your best when you can, with what you have, where you are, but doing it consistently. You know that's my thing. Making sure we're doing it consistently, all right? We don't stumble into success. That's not something that you actually just stumble into it.

You don't grind your way to it blindly. All right? You have to build it brick by brick and excellence is holding it all together. So in this episode, I want to talk about how excellence is the key to making sure everything happens. That's where your focus should be. Your focus should be on doing excellence every day in everything that you do. As soon as you wake up,

Jacques LaGrange (02:55.158)
You wanna have a plan, you wanna make sure you're writing things down. You are making sure that everything that you do write down, you execute with excellence. All right? You know, in the summertime, I usually do a mentoring program and we talk about excellence, doing things 100%. It doesn't matter. I tell people whether I speak for free, whether I speak for money.

whether I'm teaching a class, whether I'm coaching, I'm going to give 100%. Always tell the story. One of my players from baseball asked me, was like, hey coach, so like even in a pickup game, you go 100 %? I was like, yeah, don't you? I said, cause my body doesn't know the difference. My body does not know the difference between a pickup game, practice.

joking around. So when I do play the game, my body doesn't have to hit a switch. I practice and I work on excellence at all times. When I'm doing something, I want to do it with excellence. Even if it's not something that I really care for. Like sometimes, all right, can I be honest with you? Part of my job, have to either set up for certain events, have to do certain events. I'm not saying that I don't actually care about the event.

But you know what I'm saying? It may not be something that I may not be interested in, but I have to do it a part of my job. But guess what? When we set these tables out, when we put the tablecloths on, when we set up different things to go with the theme or whatever we're doing, I'm going to do it in a place of excellence. Because at the end of the day, you know what, whose face and whose name is attached to it? Mine. And whether I like it or not,

whether I, how I feel about it, doesn't matter. They're gonna know it was set up, it was done, it was executed in excellence. Now I want you to ask yourself, how many of you guys are doing stuff in excellence, right? Now, this is a switch that you do have to do when you realize that you have to commit to excellence, right? That means you have to switch your mindset.

Jacques LaGrange (05:22.616)
to excellence equals a mindset of growth. And we always want to be in a growth mindset, right? But when we focus on doing the little things, all right? That's why I was talking to somebody the other day and I was telling them, listen, sometimes you can't just focus on the goal, focus on the little steps. Those little steps and executing it with excellence is actually gonna get you to your goal. But when

you actually focus on excellence, it doesn't matter what you do. In every area of your life, you will see growth because now you have mastered the mindset, the execution of being excellent. So much, it's so much better, right? Whether you're playing a game, whether you win or you lose.

If you did it in excellence, you show up the next day, you do it excellent again, because eventually that is what is going to pay off. All right. So you have to, like I said, you have to commit to excellence. Then you'll start to realize how you do anything is how you do everything. You don't just clean your space, you honor it. You don't just show up to work. You bring value. You don't just speak.

You speak with purpose. Does everybody understand that? Like when you're doing stuff around the house, don't just do it because you have to go through the motions. Do it and honor what you're doing and do it in excellence. I know there's some days we do not feel like going to work, but regardless, show up because you actually add value to what you do to work. So if you're the value,

Why not show up in excellent?

Jacques LaGrange (07:23.18)
All right, whatever your value is, whatever your purpose is, don't let it be on clearance. Don't let it be on sale. A lot of the things that we liken in life or some of the things that we enjoy, they don't go on sale. You go into these Louis Vuitton stores, you go into Apple, there's no sale signs. The price is the price. We're saying our value is our value. So when you show up and you do things in excellence and

That is your value.

Don't do it cheap. Do it in Excel.

So when you speak stuff like what I was saying, you speak with a purpose because now when you're practicing excellence, what you say, you will decree and declare it it'll start to happen. Excellence, trains your brain to operate with intention. Let me say that again. Excellence, trains your brain to operate in intention. It rewires how you see yourself. You are no longer

someone who is chasing success. You're someone who embodies it now. Man. All right, here's the truth. Excellent does not go unnoticed. Somebody will see you when you're operating in excellence. They'll just see you. All right? And when you show up with excellence, you're telling the world, I take pride in what I do and what I produce, right?

Jacques LaGrange (09:02.892)
Like the Bible tells us you can tell a tree by the fruit it bears. Cause it's excellent in producing that fruit. So when you show up with your fruit, they're going to know what kind of tree you are because you do it in excellence and you do it consistently. All right. Now something that, that, that is hard that we have to do just like with anything we have to do.

excellence daily. It's not a one-time effort. You have to do it on a daily basis. All right. Excellence isn't a moment thing. It's a mindset. It's not just for big projects or the big stage. It's for how you answer emails. It's for how you treat people. It's for how you wake up and take care of your body and your spirit.

Like what is your routine in the morning? Do you do things in excellence? Do you start your day off by just eating junk? Do you start your day off by drinking something you probably shouldn't? Or do you start off with a routine of excellence of you may do meditation, you may do prayer, you may be drinking a bottle of water, you may be, I don't know, you may take a shower, but.

How do you set yourself up for getting to an excellence mindset? Do you do affirmations? What do you do? All right? You practice excellence on the way. That's how you get there. All right, instead of focusing on the end goal, you practice excellence on the way to get there. That's the street, that's the avenue.

That's the cul-de-sac, all of that. All of that comes into place for achieving the end goal, is understanding that excellence is the pathway. Excellence is your steps. Excellence is your mindset. Excellence is everything that you do.

Jacques LaGrange (11:24.822)
If I'm going to give somebody advice, I'm going to give them excellent advice. If I'm going to treat somebody a certain way, I'm going to treat them in an excellent

It's almost like that care and that pride that you put in things. It's like when, for those that have their grandparents or spent time with their grandparents, it's like when you have that moment where like your grandparents or somebody, some family member makes something and you're looking at them do it, but you understand that it's the excellence in how they did it that makes the food actually taste good. It's not just the ingredient.

Cause there's plenty of times I've seen my aunts, grandparents, chefs make stuff. I'm like, okay, you go to the store, you buy all the ingredients, you do it, and it just don't taste the same. But what I've realized is there is a part of excellence or a part of care as well, and they put into it of consistency. So it's really,

the consistency they do that actually makes it well. That is great service for me. If I can go to a place, because I'm usually a person, I'll go, I'll try something. I'm not a big trier of trying everything on a menu. But once I find something, most likely when I go back, I'm gonna get that again. But what I need from it is the consistency of it.

When I have consistency and I go and every time it tastes like that, that is a sign of excellence to me. If I can go somewhere, if I can go to a restaurant and it tastes the same every time, that means they have taken the steps to make their product consistent and with some type of excellence. Listen.

Jacques LaGrange (13:34.902)
I need you guys to not focus on the end goal. I need you guys now to focus on excellence. Doing it the right way. Doing it with consistency. I know that you can do this. Listen, I hope this blessed somebody. I hope this got to somebody's mindset. If you're stuck in that bump in the road and you're not sure which way you want to go and you're thinking that your goal may be too far away or you may be thinking that

You don't have what it takes, you actually do. Start with doing the small steps in an excellent way. Those are the keys. Listen, I just need you guys to do one more thing for me. You know what it is. Make sure you live on purpose and make sure you live in purpose. I'll see you guys next time. Peace.