Why 'doing your best' is sometimes not enough
In short: In high-stakes environments, the gap between effort and excellence can be fatal. Jon Bowers explores why we must move beyond personal effort toward a standard of perfection, even when the path to getting there is fraught with failure.
As a trainer for professional delivery drivers at UPS, Jon Bowers operates in a context where the cost of error is measured in lives. With approximately 100 people dying in US car accidents daily, he argues that 'trying your best' is an insufficient metric for safety. Instead, he advocates for a rigorous pursuit of perfection—defined as the commitment to perform difficult actions to ensure the correct outcome.
The core message challenges the common fear of failure. Bowers suggests that we should be equally diligent in our pursuit of high standards across all aspects of life. By embracing the difficulty of perfection, we prioritize doing what is right over the comfort of simply trying.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: We should aim for perfection -- and stop fearing failure | Jon Bowers
- Also: Jon Bowers | Speaker | TED
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