How do people actually find excellence?
Not the idea of it. The practical, day-to-day version of it.
Because most people’s instinct is to add more. More tools. More information. More activity. More effort. And sometimes that’s right. But I think the professionals who operate at the highest level have figured out something different.
Excellence comes from subtraction as much as addition.
In 1501, Michelangelo was handed a 17-foot block of marble that two other sculptors had already quit on. What came out of it was David. When someone asked how he did it, his answer was simple:
“I created a vision of David in my mind and simply carved away everything that was not David.”
That line has been sitting with me. Because I think it’s a better framework for building a great career, or a great pipeline, than almost anything else I’ve come across.
Here’s how I think about applying it.
See David before you pick up the chisel
Here’s what most people miss about Michelangelo: he wasn’t just making “a figure.” History describes he had a specific person, a specific moment, and a specific emotional state in his head before he touched the stone. He chose David moments before his fight with Goliath. Not during it. Not after.
Most of us start swinging before we know what we’re building.
Before you start, three questions I’ve found worth answering:
What is David?
What does “done” actually look like? Define it with specificity.
What is the marble?
What raw material are you starting with right now?
What is the chisel?
What will your action and accountability look like?
Once you have a real goal, it stops being ambiguous. It becomes a decision filter. Every choice has a binary answer: is this David, or is it not?
Gather the marble
You can’t carve something great out of a little pebble.
And most people don’t go wide enough in this phase, they show up with scraps and wonder why the result looks small.
Marble looks like:
- Knowledge — what you know cold
- Research — what the data actually says
- Best practices — borrowed excellence from people ahead of you
- Experiments — reps, attempts, failed tries that generate information
- People — relationships are a catalyst for ideas
- Inputs — what you’re consuming daily (this matters more than most admit)
One thing I’d add here: every great chef (I am not one!) learned classical technique before they broke the rules. You can’t innovate from ignorance.
Remove what isn’t David
This is where it gets hard. Most people can see David clearly. Most people have the marble. What they can’t do is make themselves cut.
The things that have to go:
- Noise
- Distractions
- Complexity
- Assumptions
- Fear
- Ego
- Busywork
- Limiting beliefs
- Bad habits
Michelangelo didn’t agonize over every chip. He just kept asking the same question: is this David? If the answer was no, it came off. Simple as that.
Brock Baker
