Book review: In Pursuit of Excellence, by Ted Engstrom

I recently took delivery of a handful of books from Amazon that Vern Gambetta recommended.  I rather cheekily put them all into a wish list, sorted by price and bought the cheapest ones first (second-hand, of course).  The first one I reviewed was the (very old) Frank Dick’s Training Theory, which I enjoyed, although it was very different from most of the training books that are published these days.

One of the other books I picked up was The Pursuit of Excellence, by Ted Engstrom (affiliate links: UK, US).  This too, is definitely not the kind of book I would have read if it had not come strongly recommended.

The Pursuit of Excellence (pole vault not included)

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So what’s it all about?

Basically, the book tells people to get off their backsides and start taking the opportunities that are all around them.  It does this over several chapters, with numerous witty sayings and memorable parables along the way.  A lot of his parables are based on religious situations and people but they are still accessible to people who don’t share the same beliefs.

• Give up small ambitions – Ted tells two great parables in this chapter to explain why it is very important that we aim high and try to achieve something by working hard at it.
  • The first is about an eagle, which is switched as an egg into the nest of a prairie chicken.  The eagle grows up scratching in the dirt for its dinner.  One day, it sees a full grown eagle soaring overhead and wonders what it must be like to fly so high and so majestically.  Its peers scoff and tell it to stop daydreaming.  It listens to them and dies thinking it is just a prairie chicken.  It’s a very good tale of wasted opportunity.
  • The second story is a gentle prod at people who rely too much on outside help, whether that is God, luck or karma.  A pastor found himself in possession of a run-down ranch.  Each week, on his single day off, the pastor drove up to his ranch and fixed the buildings, rebuilt the walls and fences, pulled up all of the weeds and planted new trees and crops.  One day, the following year, a farmer passed by and stopped to look.  He said to the pastor “you and God have done a good thing here”.  The pastor replied “indeed, but you should have seen it when God had it to himself.”
• Don’t just stand there, do something – in this short chapter, Ted suggests that if you are struggling to decide what to do then you should just do anything.  After all, it is better to find yourself having wasted time doing something than having wasted time not doing anything.
• Mistakes are important – Ted builds on the previous chapter by explaining why it is better to make mistakes than not to try at all.  He explains that we need to have the right attitude by describing how Thomas Edison approached his research.  One day, Edison found two of his research assistants bemoaning the fact that they had failed for the seven hundredth time to create an electric filament lamp.  He rebuked them, saying that this was the wrong way to think.  They should see themselves as being educated in knowing seven hundred ways that it was not possible to do it.  This should guide them in finding the real solution.  And, of course, one day they did.
• How high is your Attitude Quotient? – Ted explains that it’s attitude that counts a lot more than other factors when it comes to getting things done.  He identifies several attitudes to avoid in life:
  • Indifference – if you don’t care about something then you won’t have the energy to achieve it
  • Indecision – if you constantly find yourself switching between things, you won’t create the necessary foundations in a given area to make anything meaningful happen
  • Doubt – if you don’t believe you’re able to do something, it definitely won’t happen
  • Worry – worry or stress is really bad for your health and should be avoided at all costs
  • Caution – most old people say that they never regret anything they did but they regret not doing many things they had the opportunity to do but failed to do
• You don’t have to be average – Ted titles this chapter “you don’t have to be average” but he might easily have titled it “the importance of never giving up” instead.  He refers to the great Briton, Winston Churchill and his fondness for this quality.  Churchill is often quoted as having said “if you’re going through hell, keep going.”
• A creative attitude – again, Ted finds a title for a chapter that could easily again have been about perseverance.  In this chapter, Ted talks about the trials that Abraham Lincoln went through on his long and difficult journey to the American presidency.  It’s easy to forget that such people as Abraham struggled with death in his family, business failure, defeat in elections and many other difficulties before they reached the goal for which they are now remembered.
• Believing in the process – Ted concludes by repeating again that older people frequently say that they regret more the things they did not do and very few things they actually did.  He notes that it isn’t a crime to make mistakes but you could call it a crime to keep aiming low…

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In summary, if you want to achieve something, you have to go out and do things until you make enough mistakes to figure out what works and what doesn’t.  And whatever you do, you must never give up.