Excellence Speaks for Itself

Excellence comes from various ways. Being a respectable leader, an intelligent student, a man who's good with women, an active philanthropist, a caring parent, a successful businessperson - all categorized under what I call excellence.

Now. Excellence is not a living thing, but would all of you believe me if I say that excellence speaks for itself?

Just by looking at the way successful individuals deal with situations, we know that they are indeed good at what they're doing. Somehow, the skill radiates some kind of message that's saying "Hey, I'm good at doing this job". For instance, listening to some prominent leaders' speeches tells us instantly that he/she has some credibility in what he/she is doing.

While excellence is achieved by many, not everyone who has it know that excellence actually speaks for itself. Or they probably know it, but they think it's not enough to just let excellence does its job. Thus they also tend to "speak" for the excellence that they have achieved.

I have once heard some people saying

"When you've done a good job, let success speak for itself - don't interrupt"...

Until today I believe that there's so much truth in these words. There is absolutely no need for all of us to "interrupt" when our excellence can project its own image to others without our help.

I for one think that if we ever try to speak for our own excellence, it only shows that we're only irritating others into thinking that we're actually not that excellent after all. In a layman's term, this is what we call "bragging". Yes, if we need that much attention from others to show them how much we've got, we now fall far far below the level of excellence, plus we will lose respect from others at the same time.

Why is this so? If there's more effort put into trying to send the same message, logic tells us that the effect should be greater, am I right?

Errr, No...

Unfortunately, this time it doesn't work that way. This time even Mr. Logic is wrong. But why?

My opinion is this: It is because the act of praising our own self is not even part of excellence. Rather, it is a sign of our insecurity - due to the fact that we need to "project it", or else, we'd think that there's no way others can see the excellence if we live it alone to speak by itself.

But you know, the worst part of all is this - while some of us think that by telling others would alleviate our status, it'll actually just do the opposite. It instantaneously kill our reputation.

And it's sad when some of us just never learn.