WHY GREATNESS?

If you’re doing something that you care that much about, and you believe in its purpose deeply enough, then it is impossible to imagine not trying to make it great. It’s just a given. … Indeed, the real question is not “Why greatness?” but “What work makes you feel compelled to try to create greatness?” If you have to ask the question “Why should we try to make it great? Isn’t success enough?” then you’re probably engaged in the wrong line of work.

Get involved in something that you care some 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. When you do this, you will start to grow, inevitably, toward becoming a Level 5 leader.

It is impossible to have a great life unless it is a meaningful life. And it is very difficult to have a meaningful life without meaningful work. Perhaps, then, you might gain that rare tranquility that comes from knowing that you’ve had a hand in creating something of intrinsic excellence that makes a contributing. Indeed, you might even gain that deepest of all satisfactions: knowing that your short time here on this earth has been well spent, and that it mattered.

— Jim Collins, Good to Great