If you’re looking for advice, there’s no shortage of people willing to give it. That’s not always a bad thing.

After my first year of high school, a teacher jotted this in my yearbook:

“Be the best you can be at what you do. That’s success.”

Is it the best advice I’ve ever received? I’m happy to say that’s a high bar. I’ve had the good fortune to know many smart people who’ve given me many helpful tidbits of wisdom.

But this one stuck with me.

Why? Because it arrived exactly when I needed it.

Achievement Over Accolades

Growing up in a society that loves handing out rankings, ratings, and shiny medals, “winning” was always about results: the grade, the title, the spot on the leaderboard.

But this was the first time I remember someone describing success to me not as a prize, but as personal achievement. Not shooting to be the best, but aiming to be your best.

As a student who was giving myself headaches worrying about the array of letters coming back on my report card (at that point, the assessment of my worth as a person), I needed that reminder.

Every once in a while, I still do.

The Best, Simply

Usually, I’m more focused on beating my personal best than crossing some arbitrary line or winning out over others. Made-up standards can be met, sure. But when you’re only competing with yourself, there’s no finish line to cross. You keep moving forward.

Back in high school, though, I never would have been able to articulate that about myself. Having someone I respected tell me point-blank, “be the best you can be”, and not simply “be the best” really helped me recognize something I didn’t yet have the words for. That success isn’t an achievement. It’s a process.

Good Message, Better Timing

Good advice doesn’t always teach us something new. Sometimes it shines a light on something you already knew, or reminds you of something you’d forgotten.

That tiny bit of scrawl in my old yearbook may not have affected me the same way if I’d read it a year earlier, or even a year later. But in that moment, it was exactly what I needed to hear.

So no, I don’t know if it was the best advice I ever received.

But it was the right advice at the right time.

The best kind.