Better Than Best

This was the mantra that shaped me from a very young age.

When a straight-A student (me) came home to an uneducated parent (George finished grade 6) with a report card most parents would frame, George didn’t quite know how to guide his firstborn.

So he asked,

“Are you the best in your class?”

“Yes.”

“Well then, you’ve got to be better than best.”

That phrase “better than best” lodged itself deep in my psyche. It drove me. It rewarded me. It also wrecked me.

There was no finish line. No moment of “enough.” Just the next thing to conquer.

The rude awakening came in architecture school, where I was surrounded by other straight-A students; many of them more worldly, more mature, more everything. I wasn’t the best anymore. And I didn’t know who I was without that title.

I don’t fault George. He was doing his best. He didn’t have a roadmap for raising a daughter who excelled in a world he didn’t understand. So he gave me the only compass he had: keep going.

And I did. Through degrees, promotions, titles, achievements. Through burnout, reinvention, and eventually, clarity.

It’s taken me a long time to understand that success isn’t what you achieve; it’s how you show up. How you treat your friends, your family, and strangers on the street. How you make the world better, starting with yourself.

That’s the journey I’m on now. Not chasing “better than best.” Just trying to be better than yesterday.

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