This morning I had a great conversation with my brother Sam and I told him I thought it was going to lead to today’s Note. I decided to keep the Note my stream of thoughts and not clean it up to flow a little more naturally.

Greatness is defined by what you can control—what you can do, how you can serve.

Once you deliver greatness, the outcomes are out of your control because they have been handed to someone else.

Most times, your greatness will carry to the individuals who have received it, and you will see it reflected back by the outcomes the rest of the world sees.

In the times when your greatness is fumbled by the other individual, it is not less because the outcome is not what you expected it to be. The outcome is a reflection of their inability to act on your greatness.

With that being said, if the outcomes are consistently falling short after the handoff, it might be a sign that you need to re-evaluate whether or not you are actually delivering greatness. Maybe you need to refine your process or service. Or maybe you’re delivering greatness to the wrong people.

Attaching your definition of greatness to outcomes out of your control is risky—it makes you more likely to doubt your Self and greatness because of the actions of others that you cannot control. But that doesn’t mean that the outcomes won’t act as valuable feedback that can help you be even greater. Pay attention to the outcomes, but don’t assign your greatness and Self-worth to them.

An exercise for defining your greatness:

• Write down what you can do to be great.
• Write why those things make you great.
• Write out how you can check to make sure you are, in fact, being great.
• Define the outcomes you’d like to see reflected back to you—don’t attach to them.
• Reverse-engineer to make sure the reflection truly is a possible reflection of the things you listed that make you great.

Final thought: greatness is going to be found in your Authentic Life and through your unique gifts and talents, if you’re not sure where to start.

See you tomorrow and keep pursuing,

JC