Consistent high quality effort is appreciated

Last weekend I covered two events for The Brazil Times that were enjoyed by many.

Both French's Easter egg hunt and Sonni Burris' health and wellness shows were enjoyable because they were well organized and well executed. Both qualities are important and just cannot be overemphasized.

I say this because I have been to so many events that left me frustrated, sometimes to the point of exasperation. Why? It comes down to lack of preparation and poor execution. If a leader is not well prepared it leaves everyone confused.

Too many times leaders have a "Jack Horner" attitude. You remember the nursery rhyme about the little guy who "stuck in his thumb and pulled out a plum and said, 'What a good boy am I!'"

It just strikes me that too many folks expect that no matter what effort they put goes into a project they should be patted on the head, praised and told, "What a good boy (or girl)!"

In the real world it doesn't work that way.

There seem to be a relatively few people who consistently do an excellent job at what they do. If it looks easy and a good job is accomplished, rest assured they made it look easy through much planning and practice.

I remember a camp where I worked as a counselor one year. We had 50 campers that week and they came from all different backgrounds.

For talent night, one little boy decided to break dance and he did. Boy did he break dance! The campers were applauding and whistling because that little guy knew what he was doing.

So, another little boy decided to give it a try. He had never tried to break dance a day in his life. I felt sorry for him because following his performance the silence was deafening.

I encouraged him to keep practicing or to bring something he could do well to the next talent night.

That's the challenge for all of us, isn't it? Find our talents and develop them.

A famous writer once said, to be a good writer you must read a lot and write a lot. That makes sense, if you are reading the works of good authors.

It's much like Sonni Burris said at her show last Saturday. If you want to be healthy, it takes both high quality food and exercise.

Again, well done, all of you who consistently perform at a high level of competency.

Everyone makes mistakes and fails. I think of baseball. When was the last time you heard of a baseball player with a batting average of 1.00? You have not because that player would hit a fair ball every time he or she batted. They would be perfect! That's why batting averages are expressed in terms of .400 (for really good batters) or less. Every batter strikes out from time to time. No batter makes it to first base every time.

But we want to be people who have the reputation of doing all things well, everything we decide to pursue.