I said something to a friend a while ago which he credits with getting him back on track.

He had sold his business a year previously, and was "living the dream" - lots of travel, he'd become an expert diver, had the "3 Bs" - BMW, Beach House, Boat.

But I knew this guy pretty well.  He is an intelligent, caring and self-aware kind of man, and he's always been restless for what you might call performance at the next level.

I simply looked him in the eye and said "You know you can do better than this".

It was something someone said to me years ago after I'd done something that I thought was pretty good.  It rocked me at the time because it was absolutely true.  I thought about what I could do if I wasn't constrrained by what I had done to date.  How different my approach and ambition would be!  And I didn't know then what shape it would take, but it took away the limitation of aiming to repeat what I had achieved to that point.

I think it's true about 99% of the time.  Wherever we've got to, we can do better.

And if it's not true, then it's time to move on.  If we can't do any better, there's nothing more to see here.

It's a great question to ask of ourselves but also of others, especially those who work for us.  The implication is that you believe they've got the capability to deliver to a higher standard, that they have your total confidence.  That's a great message to get: this is good, but you can do even better.

Question: is this as good as you get?  If it's not, what are you going to do about it?