Do your work with your whole heart, and you will succeed – there’s so little competition.

The wry part is the observation about how rare full effort is. Most work is done adequately, at partial attention, by people conserving themselves for something else, which means the standard you are actually competing against is lower than it looks from outside. Doing one thing thoroughly stands out for reasons that have little to do with talent.

Rather than trying to be exceptional across the board, pick one piece of work in the next fortnight and do it completely, past the point where it would have been accepted. Notice the response. It is usually out of proportion to the extra effort, which tells you something about the baseline.