Mediocrity results first and foremost from management failure, not technological failure.

If you have more than three priorities then you don't have any.

I am not failing - I am growing! Do you have the ability to reframe failure as growth in order to achieve your goals?

Level 5 leaders are fanatically driven, infected with an incurable need to produce sustained results. They are resolved to do whatever it takes to make the company great, no matter how big or hard the decisions.

Perhaps your quest to be part of building something great will not fall in your business life. But find it somewhere. If not in corporate life, then perhaps in making your church great. If not there, then perhaps a nonprofit, or a community organization, or a class you teach. Get involved in something that you care so much about that you want to make it the greatest it can possibly be, not because of what you will get, but just because it can be done.

Level 5 leaders are a study in duality: modest and willful, humble and fearless.

A great company will have many once-in-a-liftetime opportunities.