Hey everyone,

THANK YOU SO MUCH for the show of support!!!!  We are well on the way to hitting our goal of 1,000 pre-orders.  Yes...I say "we" because there is NO WAY I can do this on my own!!!  You all are awesome and I am GRATEFUL for each and every one of you!!!

I have a saying... "Excellence buys you freedom...Perfection makes you it's slave".  So today I want to share a brief excerpt from the book about excellence vs. perfection.  I picked this topic because I see it in my own life so much.  I see how much the struggle for perfection has cost me personally and I thought this passage could help you or someone you know start winning the battle against perfection.

So...let's dive right it :)

Excellence Buys You Freedom

“Nobody’s perfect.”

Did a parent, a teacher, or a friend ever offer you that reassuring platitude when you were younger?

Maybe they missed the thousands of TV commercials, advertisements, and magazine covers that all tout the secrets to perfection. Many mass-marketing experts want you to know that the perfect body, diet, outfit, and vacation all exist and must be pursued.

If you fall short of perfection, their ads insinuate, you’re a failure.  But guess what? There’s good news: whoever told you “Nobody’s perfect” was a lot wiser than the commercials would have you believe.

The Slave Master

The word ‘perfect’ is thrown around so much these days that people have stopped thinking about its impact.  People desire the perfect house, the perfect Christmas, the perfect car, or the perfect family.

Unfortunately, the repeated failure to achieve perfection then leaves people feeling unworthy and unlovable. 

Perfection fascinates me. For many years, I was what you would call a perfectionist. To me, perfection was the only acceptable outcome, and I would beat myself up when I didn’t reach it. Perfection is, of course, unattainable, except in certain extreme conditions and situations.

Striving for perfection is demoralizing. It will enslave you and turn every person around you into your master as you begin to believe they all see where you failed and find you unworthy. You will begin to compare yourself to people you see as superior. You will assume that everyone else is comparing you to others.

On top of that, when perfection is your slave master, you become a master to everyone else, too. You begin to compare everything you do to what others do, and you will either be left wanting or feeling superior. When a person feels superior, they like to wallow in it, looking down on everyone else while believing they are better.

Here’s what I’ve learned about perfection: it’s all about taking things away. Did you ever notice that?

When I strive for perfection, I remove everything that does not contribute to my ideal. I must lose ten pounds. I need to remove the ugly décor in my home. I need to eliminate my children’s bad habits. 

Perfectionism is a bully.

It finds a person’s weaknesses and then points them out again and again until those weaknesses are the only things they can see. There is no possible way for any of us imperfect humans to be utterly perfect all the time. Even if I managed to achieve the goal of perfection I set, there would still be something inside me that would not be satisfied. I would find myself looking back and seeing something I could have done better.

Perfection is a single moment in time that a person works toward. They may reach that evanescent moment where they achieve their goals, but then the moment fades away. They’re left in the dark again, looking for another flicker of light to pursue. While those moments of achievement might be glorious, they are fleeting. The emptiness that follows is an ever-deepening hollow that enslaves the person even more.

There are ways to break free of perfectionism....which we talk about more in the book :) 

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Thanks my friends and appreciate all you do!!!!

God bless and untill next time...

EXPECT GREATNESS!!!!!!!

John