And on the other hand, here is a quotation in The Prince:
"Let no one be surprised if, in speaking of entirely new principalities as I shall do, I adduce the highest examples both of prince and of state; because men, walking almost always in paths beaten by others, and following by imitation their deeds, are yet unable to keep entirely to the ways of others or attain to the power of those they imitate. A wise man ought always to follow the paths beaten by great men, and to imitate those who have been supreme, so that if his ability does not equal theirs, at least it will savour of it. Let him act like the clever archers who, designing to hit the mark which yet appears too far distant, and knowing the limits to which the strength of their bow attains, take aim much higher than the mark, not to reach by their strength or arrow to so great a height, but to be able with the aid of so high an aim to hit the mark they wish to reach." http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?pageno=18fk_files=221597
Many people think that “good enough” is better than “perfect”, because you can deliver the good enough product in time and budget, and no-one comes after you demanding a perfect product. So you might think that “good enough” is worse than “perfect” so worse would be better. But that is wrong, because perfect is better than good enough, if you ask me. If someone delivered better than your good enough also perhaps at the same price or cheaper, then you would loose many customers. So in the end being able to deliver a perfect product in time and budget is the ultimate goal. We can limitlessly approach perfection as a affordable solution.
What Steve was saying is that we don’t really understand what it takes to be great. When it does happen it’s easy. Some can be great more often than others perhaps, but anybody can be great sometimes. (At least once maybe.) But if you’re only great say for example, less than half the time, you may not enjoy a long career.
But we can understand what it takes to be good. We can practice our art, we can develop dependable technique so that we can be consistently good, any time, any place. But this is what’s hard to do. It’s also what allows us to stay in the game and have more chances to roll the dice for the possibility to experience greatness. (I also think that knowing you can be consistently good might give you the confidence to take an occasional chance, maybe unconsciously, to “go for it”.)
This is entirely different than saying that we should only aim to be “just good enough”.