In this episode of Veteran Led, John Berry challenges leaders to ask the tough question: “Is this the best you can do?” He dives into the mindset of continuous improvement, explaining why “your best” today should only be a steppingstone to what you can achieve tomorrow.
John shares personal stories, including lessons from hiring coaches, building high-performing teams, and developing new skills—even when it meant starting from scratch. This episode is a reminder that great leaders lead by example, embrace growth, and never settle for “good enough”.
Welcome fellow veterans. From the tip of the spear to in the rear with the gear, I went from active-duty Infantry to reserve-component logistician. I’m your host, CEO, entrepreneur, trial lawyer, and Lieutenant Colonel Retired, John Berry.
Is this the best that you can do? Years ago, I received an irate phone call from the Chief Executive Officer of a large marketing firm. During a Zoom call, my CMO, my Chief Marketing Officer, called out his team, and he asked that question, Is this the best that you can do? What he was simply asking is, Can you meet our standards? Can you meet your obligations under the contract? He didn’t ask, did you do your best? Because that might have been offensive. But he asked, is that the best you can do? I think the answer to the question is, is that the best you can do, is always no. Because even if it was your best shot, you could always do it better if you had another opportunity, more practice, more rehearsals, more time, more resources, a more talented team, or a bigger budget. Is it the best you could do? Well, maybe it was the best you could do at the time, but if you could do it over again, you could usually do it better. That’s why in the military, we do the after-action reviews, because we can always do something better. Let’s face it, if you really want to do your best at anything, you commit to it.
You become a constant student and you constantly improve. Many people hire coaches for that reason. Now, I know people that have worked with phenomenal business coaches and horrible business coaches. I know people that have worked with personal trainers and people who say they get better results training by themselves. I even know people who have hired parenting coaches. The one thing I found in common when I talk to these people about why they chose that coach is that they were looking for someone who had climbed that mountain, who had did the thing that they want to do, or were about two years ahead of where they wanted to be. If you’re providing a service, people hire you because they depend on you. Now, I learned this as a lawyer, people would often come to me with a huge problem and say, Hey, I’m depending on you. I think back to a case I had, we had just won the jury trial, and it was out in almost a Yellowstone-type scenery. We’re out, there’s mountains, there’s rattlesnakes. I’m sitting there talking to this rancher, and he says, You know, if we I didn’t do everything, this could have went really bad.
My life would have been over. What he meant by that was we invested in hiring private investigators. We hired the best expert witnesses. We ran focus groups. The best I could do for this man was to bring the best professionals on the team. You see, if I just said the best I could do is the best I could do, that wouldn’t be enough because I wouldn’t be enough to win that case. It had to be more than me. It had to be a team. The best we can today is never the best that we can do tomorrow. And so by bringing on better people, we generally become better. That’s why when you hire people, you want to hire the absolute best. Why? Because you have an obligation to your clients or your customers, whoever is paying you money to provide a service, to provide value, you want to deliver that value. And to do that, you have to do your best. And doing your best means more than just doing what you are able to do today. Now, I’m not talking about being self-deprecating, but you need to develop new skills to do your best.
And when we develop new skills, we’re not that good. Most of the things that we’re great at came from skills that took years to develop. So it’s okay not to be good. One example from this year was that I took a public speaking course. Now, I am very comfortable speaking in public. I’m comfortable arguing in court. I’m comfortable arguing a case in front of a jury. But I found that being a keynote speaker is different. There are different skills that you need to develop. But I also found that those same skills could make me better when I argued a case in front of a jury or in front of a judge. Developing skills sometimes that you’re not great at can help you in other areas where you might already be great and you want to get even better. Now, when you do things that you’re not good not, hire that expert to give you the shortcut. When I hired that public speaking coach, I thought that I had to learn steps A, B, C, D, E, F. That expert worked with me and said, John, you’re good at A, B. Let me help you with the C, don’t even worry about D and E and go to F.
Now, had I not hired that coach, I would have spent a lot of time on steps that I didn’t need to spend time doing. The shortcut didn’t exactly make things easier, but I spent time doing the right stuff instead of the stuff that wouldn’t have an impact. When you ask, Is this the best you can do? Don’t be fragile. Be honest, but don’t be self-deprecating. Just be honest. I’m not that good right now, but I am going to be great at this in six months because I’m going to put in the time. I think that’s the difference between people that improve and people that don’t. People that I’ve seen improve the most are great at what they do, and they’re not afraid to learn a new skill and to suck at that skill for a little bit of time until they can develop it into something that they can be extraordinary at. You can always do better, but don’t let your ego prevent you from examining how to get better. Take an honest look and ask yourself, Is this the best I can do? The answer is probably no. Probably with more resources, more training, and more opportunities, you can become even better.
When you do that, you are leading by example. Your team sees it, your family sees it, your clients see it. Most importantly, you see it, and you do it again and again. You continue to build skills. Is what you did today the best you could do today? Well, if you gave your best effort, it probably is. But it’s not better than what you can do tomorrow. If you’re a leader, people expect you to do better tomorrow because it’s your job to bring them that bigger, more exciting future.
Thank you for joining us today on Veteran Led, where we pursue our mission of promoting veteran leadership in business, strengthening the veteran community, and getting veterans all of the benefits that they earned. If you know a leader who should be on the Veteran Led podcast, report to our online community by searching @veteranled on your favorite social channels and posting in the comments. We want to hear how your military challenges prepared you to lead your industry or community, and we will let the world know. And of course, hit subscribe and join me next time on Veteran Led.
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