Is this the best you can do?

A lesson from Henry Kissinger

Henry Kissinger was known for being an uber-perfectionist politician, especially when it came to writing speeches.

He believed every single word in a speech counted, and didn't consider one done until it was revised 20 times.

He also demanded the same level of perfection from his staff and colleagues.

Here’s the story of Ambassador Winston Lord handing Kissinger a report (from Walter Isaacson’s book “Kissinger: A Biography”)

One oft-told tale about Kissinger…involved a report that Winston Lord had worked on for days.

After giving it to Kissinger, he got it back with the notation “Is this the best you can do?”

Lord rewrote and polished and finally resubmitted it; back it came with the same curt question.

After redrafting it one more time–and once again getting the same question from Kissinger–Lord snapped, “Damn it, yes, it’s the best I can do.”

To which Kissinger replied: “Fine, then I guess I’ll read it this time.”

The lesson from Kissinger is that we all inherently put self-inflicted psychological barriers on doing our best work.

This is probably why experienced bodybuilders need training coaches to keep pushing them to lift heavier weights.

But most times, those psychological barriers are can be broken, or at least raised to a higher level.

So the next time you’re doing work that matters, ask yourself: “Is this the best you can do?”

A version of this article appears on my LinkedIn profile