This is a marketing story. But it could quite easily apply to ones life. I was reading the list of top 50 restaurants in the world as per the S Pellegrino Awards announced in April 2007. The number one rated restaurant, in the world, is called El Bulli and it is situated down a lovely driveway in Roses on the Costa Brava, about 160km north of Barcelona. With other words, it’s not situated at a major thoroughfare, or in the centre of a busy shopping mall. In fact it has none of the features that property agents love to scream at anybody within screaming distance which is position, position, position.

Don’t even think of just dropping in at the El Bulli, the newspaper tells me. The bookings open on one day in mid January. That’s it! It takes one day, to fill this restaurant for its opening times of April to September. The rest of the year it appears that the staff at the restaurant under the leadership of its head chef Ferran Adria invent new food flavours. Apparently the menu doesn’t cater to the hungry wishing to tank up on food. It is a food and taste sensation of 25 or so dishes per sitting. The restaurant is not famous for any particular signature dish. According to the critics it ‘transcends the limitations of signature dishes’.

This is a fascinating story. This is what it is all about. Sheer excellence that doesn’t require huge advertising budgets, call centres that phone up arbitrary people to sell the restaurant or major internet ad spend on Google click through advertising. I can hear all those advertising execs screech that this is different. El Bulli is a one off, it has no competition etc etc. What? The restaurant industry must be one of the most hotly contested industries in the world. Everybody has an idea on how to do it better. Not only that, El Bulli don’t even sell conventional food.

When last did you buy a product or service that was of such high standard of excellence that you realised immediately that you would never use anybody else’s product or service again, ever. Not? Thought so. Isn’t that dreadful. We are so used to mediocrity, it doesn’t even occur to us to question it anymore. It’s just normal. No El Bulli around when it comes to plumbers, mechanics, food stores, clothes shops, public transport you name it. In fact anything we come in contact with, is ordinary. And we pay for it without complaining. We only complain when it is really shoddy.

I remember many years ago when my parents were still alive, I travelled many times from South Africa to Germany to visit them. We always flew Swissair. They had rickety aircraft, a few of them even fell out of the sky, unexpectedly. They were just amazingly better than their competitors at looking after their passengers.

So why would I suggest that this is similar to our lives? When last did we strive to be exceptionally excellent? When did we offer our service or expertise to somebody, whether in a job or as a consultant/advisor that was so outstanding, our boss or client was speechless? When did we last bother to put in 150% effort into our relationship? Have we bought into a mediocre life where everything we do only warrants a half baked attempt. And then we are absolutely surprised that we are still in the same job, same unsatisfactory relationship, living in the same messy and dirty home and suffering from the same bad financial situation.

If we pumped up our level of commitment, knowledge, effort, delivery etc whether on a professional or personal level, we would also be fully booked in one day, absolutely appreciated by our loved ones, way ahead of the pack.