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Normalizing Excellence

Let’s talk Kobe! He’s at the top of his game, the apex of his career, and he’s alone in a gym working on the same fundamental footwork drills he’s done thousands of times before. Oh, yea - and it’s 4 AM. For his teammates it wasn’t just his dedication that stood out, but how routine it seemed. While other players treated early morning workouts as special occasions that required extra motivation and mental preparation, Kobe had normalized this behavior to the point where not showing up at 4 AM would have felt strange. He didn't need to psych himself up or rely on fleeting inspiration; this routine had become his default setting.
Tim Grover, who trained both Kobe and Jordan, observed that elite athletes don't just do difficult things - they make difficult things feel normal. They create systems and environments where behaviors that would exhaust most people become as automatic as brushing their teeth. Kobe's 4 AM workouts weren't acts of heroic willpower - they were Tuesday. This normalization extended beyond himself to how he influenced his teammates. When new players joined the Lakers, they quickly learned that Kobe's standard wasn't something to aspire to occasionally - it was the baseline expectation. Players who initially balked at the intensity found themselves adapting because the culture made excellence feel inevitable rather than extraordinary.
Why Should We Care?
The power of normalizing difficult behaviors lies in our ability to remove the emotional friction that prevents most people from achieving consistency. When we treat challenging activities as special events that require enormous willpower, we create mental barriers that make them unsustainable. Every workout becomes a mountain to climb, every difficult conversation becomes a heroic act, and every challenging goal requires us to summon superhuman motivation. But leaders who achieve sustained excellence understand that willpower is finite - it's our systems and normalized behaviors that create lasting results.
The exact same principle applies to leadership development. The best leaders don't inspire their teams through occasional grand gestures or motivational speeches - they create environments where high performance becomes the natural way of operating. They normalize behaviors like giving direct feedback, taking risks, and maintaining high standards not through force or charisma, but by making these actions feel like the obvious thing to do. When difficult behaviors become normalized, they stop being difficult. The psychological energy that used to go toward overcoming resistance can now be channeled toward innovation and growth.
For individuals pursuing excellence, normalizing positive but challenging behaviors is perhaps the most practical path to transformation. Instead of relying on bursts of motivation or waiting for the perfect moment to change, you can gradually shift your identity by making small, difficult things feel routine. This approach recognizes that excellence isn't about occasional peak performance - it's about raising your baseline. When showing up early, preparing thoroughly, or having tough conversations becomes as natural as checking your email, you've created a foundation for sustained high performance that doesn't depend on external circumstances.

REAL TALK - Action Steps
Here are a few simple, actionable ideas for normalizing excellence in your world:

• Minimize to Normalize 
  
  • Choose one small but positive difficult behavior and commit to doing it daily for 30 days, regardless of how you feel. This could be writing for 15 minutes before checking emails, doing 10 push-ups before your first meeting, or asking one clarifying question in every conversation. The key is selecting something that feels slightly uncomfortable but completely manageable. Track it simply - a checkmark on your calendar is enough. The goal isn't dramatic change; it's making the difficult feel routine. Once this behavior becomes automatic - you'll know because you'll feel weird when you don't do it, add another micro-behavior to the stack.
    

• Simplify to Normalize
  
  • Remove friction from positive behaviors and add friction to negative ones. The environment should make the right choice feel obvious and effortless. Design your physical and digital environment to support the behaviors you want to normalize. If you want to normalize giving feedback, schedule recurring 15-minute one-on-ones with your team members. If you want to normalize continuous learning, set up a specific reading spot with good lighting and keep relevant books visible. Your goal is to create conditions where doing the difficult thing requires less decision-making energy than avoiding it.
    

• Act to Normalize
  
  • Your actions define your identity more than your intentions do. Stop describing challenging positive behaviors as things you're "trying to do" and start describing them as things you "do." Instead of "I'm trying to be more direct with feedback," say "I give clear feedback." Share these identity statements with others, not for accountability, but to reinforce the normalization in your own mind. When you consistently act like someone who does difficult things easily, you become someone who does difficult things easily.
    

The most powerful leadership development strategy isn't learning to do extraordinary things extraordinarily well; it's learning to do difficult things so routinely that they stop being difficult. In this way, what seems impossible to others becomes inevitable for us.

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