I recently heard the story of John Lasseter’s first meeting with Steve Jobs (Lasseter is the chief creative officer at Pixar and Walt Disney Animations). It was 1986, and Jobs had just taken over Pixar. Lasseter was the studio’s only animator at the time, and in meeting with Jobs, wanted to pitch a short film he was working on that would help showcase Pixar’s technology. After listening, Jobs gave Lasseter only four words of advice: “Just make it great.”
And that’s the same advice he gave him over the years. Regardless of the film or the project, the goal was the same: just make it great. And that’s what Pixar has done, over and over and over again.
In our own lives and work, having the goal of making something great doesn’t allow us to settle for mediocre. Rather it pushes us to aim higher, and to go beyond average. It also helps us determine whether something is done: Is it great? If not, what needs to be done to make it great?
Great doesn’t mean perfect. But it does mean going beyond what most of us settle for.
And yes, this pursuit of excellence—of making what we do great—can be exhausting. But it can also be exhilarating. And when our work is done, we can look at what we’ve accomplished with great satisfaction, being glad that we didn’t settle for something less.