Every day you (anyone, for that matter) really get something done, it is genuinely an achievement. With that sentence, I begin this article. Reality is not an either/or thing, it comes down to what we are and what we genuinely do.

This is an article on getting things genuinely done, so I will not mince words.

Some people are like a Reuben Garrett Lucius “Rube” Goldberg cartoon when it comes to getting things genuinely done with a thousand steps to avoid real work, and ending up doing more work than if they had not avoided the work. They are real life poor, and sorry players at the game of life.

Some other people get straight through and work right, work efficiently, and are very direct in their approach. Those are the good players of the game of life worth saving and cherishing, their brilliance gets things done, in not just a reputation sense, but a genuine action taking sense of it.

A few other people get great. What do I mean by get great? Great is above the good as good is above the poor and sorry. I put great in this category, because, realistic greatness is a powerfully earned condition where that rare mastery really is achieved. Sure, the good is the good and the poor is the poor, but that is common. When I say great, I mean Steph Curry and Michael Jordan type basketball mastery, not just Dennis Rodman and Ron Artest/Metta World Peace good playing with antics just getting the job done to end this paragraph with a logically usable metaphor.

When the everyday reality of getting things done is great, things are genuinely taken to “the next level of reality” and not just a median good or the common poor. Sure, all conditions are a part and parcel of “getting it done”, but only the great, the rare great really advance things in life. The good can just do it, do it proficiently and go home satisfied with what they did.

The great people though take it to the next level, another level and advancement unlike the other levels of effort. Think deeply about this fact. I mean, greatness is desired, but for so many, the effort seems to be too much. Although it actually takes more effort to be a poor player in life, there is something that short circuits and falls short there and cannot even make good. After all, good work is done when the capability and desire are genuinely there to do it. Great work is done when you need and want deeply (in that order) to get past just poor or good. We all have a choice, we all have a desire, and we all have a reality to live and whatever the reality poor, good or great, all conditions are part of it all.

So, here is my solemn advice on becoming good or great or good then great. Five words: Get conscious. Control yourself genuinely.

I was reading a self-help book last night by Uell Stanley Andersen called “Success-Cybernetics”, at this writing I am on the third chapter again out of that fifteen chapter book. The whole book is about self-direction, self-control and understanding the big basic why behind self-direction and self-control with some funny anecdotes in-between. Sure, in some ways this book is more direct than the other things I have read of his like “Three Magic Words”, “The Secret of the Pyramids” and all of that and a little blunt for when it was written at times, but the message is clear: Get conscious. Control yourself genuinely. He and I use those five words in the same way and that is what the good and great have in common, they are those five words.