Last night I dreamed that I was hanging out with Tom Brady, the famous American footballer. We weren’t playing American football. We were just visiting during a game. Later I had a dream with Barack Obama, but I couldn’t quite recall the content. In the past I have played tennis in my dreams with Roger Federer.

When you dream about being with a talented person who has achieved a lot, the dream is calling you to the virtue of excellence. Excellence is the quality that allows you to set a high standard and then make continual efforts to get there. It is not to be confused with perfectionism which is trying to reach a high place without any mistakes. The truly accomplished people gain excellence by understanding that failure and mistakes is part of the learning process. They keep their eyes focused on the goals ahead and keep moving forward with efforts. Perfectionism tends to be fear based almost like trying to be god-like, whereas excellence is the ability to be more relaxed as you go for what seems to be impossible at times.

Where people get into trouble with excellence is when they seek recognition instead of the joy of moving towards the positive end.

What are the high aims you are seeking to achieve? What are the efforts that I need to make today to move towards them?