A few weeks ago my family had the privilege to see the Orlando Ballet perform the famous Nutcracker ballet. My daughters all dance, and the two younger ones are part of a dance Company. The Company has also put on their own version of The Nutcracker. So, as a present, a couple in my church got us tickets after they found out that none of us had actually ever seen the ballet in full.
While there, I was reminded about how the path to success was laid over the foundation of hard work. Each of the dancers, many of whom only played minor roles, clearly had years of effort into their craft. The principle dancers were incredible.
You could see their muscles rippling as they performed the intricate dance steps. One group of ballerinas did one part that had them on Pointe (up on their toes) for a full 2 minutes as they went around and around in a circle. As my middle daughter Meryn is just now moving to Pointe, I know how difficult this is. Meanwhile, some of the men dancers could do moves such as turning around several times in a row, ramrod stiff at attention. The men dancing the Russian dance were literally leaping 2-3 feet in the air, easily high enough to perform a slam dunk with a basketball.
Yet, it was during the middle of the second act that you could really see their devotion to excellence . . .and get another glimpse of this from another field. We were engrossed with the main paired dance of the night, the Pas de Deux, often known as the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy. All of a sudden, a woman about 15 rows forward started racing for the door, shouting for the usher. In the commotion, it became clear that her companion had fainted or worse, perhaps suffered a heart attack.
The Bob Carr staff performed as well as one would expect and quickly there was an effort to get medical help. When we left 15 minutes later, the EMT staff was already on the scene. BUT, the more impressive act was from a woman about 10 rows behind the commotion (or only a few rows in front of us). Someone had shouted the famous “Is there a doctor in the house?” and all of a sudden, this woman raced from her seat. Whether a nurse, EMT expert or a doctor, she didn’t care. She didn’t wait to see if they really needed her. She didn’t complain about having to get up during this famous part of the ballet.
She just reacted showing her own devotion to excellence. I was immediately reminded about how often I have told students and my audiences that they too need to be focused on every day, on every task, and be equally devoted to excellence! Far too often we give only half-hearted efforts at our tasks, or we think that someone else should really be doing this for me. We don’t really seem to care if what we did was good or not. We simply want to pass the time and move on.
Not this lady! She sprung into action demonstrating the devotion to excellence.
And the dancers? They did too.
They never stopped dancing.