I'm now 81, a reader and a writer. I was an active professor of business for around 50 years; still work a little as an editorial reviewer. The thing is this thorn called "excellence." My late wife was my colleague, my co-author 75 times and a perfectionist, (of sorts). I was never a perfectionist but there was little difference between us, except attitude. If I found something interesting I was all over it and strove to excel. However, that was never a hard and fast goal for all things. I was happy for a B+ so I could move on to my search for more stimulation. Another thing, when I saw someone doing something excellent I would always try to help them get better. My wife was this way as well. My wife and I wrote over 50 business case studies and reviewed 500 or more (separately). When we were given pieces to review that we saw we could help become great we would help in any way we could. I had the same attitude grading student papers. The better the paper at the start, the more comments I made and the more I tried to help make the piece better. My wife was so good as a reviewer one academic association named their annual "Reviewer of the Year" award after her. I've never done bad work on purpose and never will. But if something really wasn't interesting I would let down a little to get on down the road. The hardest thing for me has always been publishing my original research. Mine always starts with curiosity. I want to know everything. So I do the research, satisfy my curiosity, and move on. Turning all the results of my findings into a proper article was generally boring and dealing with editors was even worse (even though I held editor positions for nearly 15 years over my career). Excellence is often something I can take or leave alone.
I'm now 81, a reader and a writer. I was an active professor of business for around 50 years; still work a little as an editorial reviewer. The thing is this thorn called "excellence." My late wife was my colleague, my co-author 75 times and a perfectionist, (of sorts). I was never a perfectionist but there was little difference between us, except attitude. If I found something interesting I was all over it and strove to excel. However, that was never a hard and fast goal for all things. I was happy for a B+ so I could move on to my search for more stimulation. Another thing, when I saw someone doing something excellent I would always try to help them get better. My wife was this way as well. My wife and I wrote over 50 business case studies and reviewed 500 or more (separately). When we were given pieces to review that we saw we could help become great we would help in any way we could. I had the same attitude grading student papers. The better the paper at the start, the more comments I made and the more I tried to help make the piece better. My wife was so good as a reviewer one academic association named their annual "Reviewer of the Year" award after her. I've never done bad work on purpose and never will. But if something really wasn't interesting I would let down a little to get on down the road. The hardest thing for me has always been publishing my original research. Mine always starts with curiosity. I want to know everything. So I do the research, satisfy my curiosity, and move on. Turning all the results of my findings into a proper article was generally boring and dealing with editors was even worse (even though I held editor positions for nearly 15 years over my career). Excellence is often something I can take or leave alone.