If you observed at a waiter at a restaurant (where else you find a waiter? Well, I guess maybe a bar or sporting event…) and asked yourself what his or her job is, your answer would probably be that they take orders, get them to the kitchen, and bring food and drinks to the table. It’s a lot more than that. A competent waiter has to recommend items, take special requests, be friendly to customers, make sure the kitchen isn’t overwhelmed, anticipate when the customer needs a refill or to-go container and many more little activities—the list is endless. There a good waiters, there are bad waiters, and then…there are amazing waiters. In any job there are the good, the bad, and the amazing. The first step to being amazing takes understanding what that means. To be amazing requires the knowledge that there is a regimen of activities, which must be executed on a regular basis whether you’re having a good day, or a bad day, or you have a hangover. Amazing is not a destination. It’s something that you have to strive for every single day. A patron of a restaurant doesn’t care how amazing a waiter was yesterday. The only thing that customer cares about is if they’re going to receive amazing service in that moment. I have a 20-60-20 rule. Twenty percent of the time you are going to love what you do. Sixty percent of the time you are going to be indifferent. The other 20% you are going to absolutely hate what you are doing. No matter how much you love your job—or life—everything falls into these three categories, even the most passionate relationship. To become amazing takes understanding the time and the resources needed for each bucket. Most people spend all their time and resources in the middle 60%. They don’t have the guts to visit the bottom 20%, or they don’t have time or the energy to visit the top 20%. Another scenario is that some people just live in the top 20%, working only on the things that excite them. They don’t perform the ordinary regimen (60%) and they don’t want to deal with all the problems that come from being amazing (bottom 20%). This could be an example of an owner of a restaurant who wants to have cocktails with customers but not work on the books. Many people assume that as you move towards amazing, you move into the top 20%, but it’s not like that. Being amazing means that everything gets more intense than it was before. The top 20% becomes more fun and exciting, the middle 60% becomes more complicated, and the bottom 20% will suck more. If you look at a quarterback on an NFL team, he has more glory (top 20%), his regimen is more complicated (middle 60%), and if something goes wrong, he gets all the blame (bottom 20%). What people see is only the top 20%. The press conferences, the endorsements, the commercials, the girls, and we put them on pedestals because they’re amazing. If you look at the best player in the whole world, the LeBron James, the Kobe Bryant, the Tom Brady, they have been crucified and often run through the mud by the media. Everything that they do wrong is under a microscope. They’re almost an assistant coach; they have to carry the team when the team is not so good. Their lists of fundamentals are a lot more involved. Not only do they have to keep in shape, but they have to mentor players. They are bombarded by media obligations, they are not the players that play the game, take a shower, and find groupies. Your hardest job is probably going to be your dream job. It’s a job that seems amazing but it’s like a child opening up a present at Christmas only to see that it needs batteries. (Crap!) Even the best things in life have the 20-60-20 rule. Being a parent is the same thing. You need to tell the kids to brush their teeth, eat their vegetables (middle 60%). There are times when you have to punish the kids, taking away their tv, yelling at them (bottom 20%). And there are times when they fall asleep on your chest and that is the best thing in the whole world (top 20%). Even on vacations you have to go through TSA (bottom 20%), you have to wait in lines all the time (middle 60%), and when you’re at a restaurant, they deliver the perfect steak (top 20%). Life is about taking the good with the bad, but I think it’s even more than that. It’s taking the amazing with the absolutely worst things in life. If you don’t invite both of them into your life, you are probably denying amazing into your life.