Some people have fame thrust upon them. Very few have excellence thrust upon them.

Leaders pursue excellence. They lead their organizations, their families, their businesses, their countries, and, in fact, their very lives striving for their best.

We are witnessing a nation, a leader, committed to excellence. A people that are giving their very best. Less than our best is inadequate, considering the fact that we have examples of others who have given us their very best.

Martin Luther King, Jr. said, Whatever our role, our position, our organization, or lot in life, we should strive for the best. The measure of our success should not be attached to our particular career or what we earn but on our character and what we give.

“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Excellence does not mean being the best but being your best, understanding that variation makes all the difference in the world. It makes a difference in the world. Excellence is being better than you were yesterday. Excellence means matching your practice with your potential.

The past may not change as it’s being reflected upon, but a future that begins with today can certainly be changed by continually striving to be our best selves. It’s exactly that focus on the future, on being better, striving for excellence, that makes a leader.

If you want to help Ukraine below are a list of resources

_{(source: Washington Post)}

Here’s how you can help:

• Click on the website for Care, the international humanitarian juggernaut, and a pop-up window appears. “UKRAINE EMERGENCY,” the alert says, with a photo of a woman holding a child. “Families in Ukraine are fleeing violence and urgently need emergency aid. CARE is providing food, water, and more,” the homepage says. The group has partnered with People in Need and hopes to build a fund that can reach 4 million people, especially women, girls and the elderly. Donations for Care can be made here.
• Doctors Without Borders, which works in conflict zones, is partnering with volunteers in Ukraine to help people travel to health-care facilities and working to ensure that people have access to health care and medicine. To support Doctors Without Borders’ Ukraine work, click here.
• GlobalGiving, a U.S.-based nonprofit crowdfunding platform for grass-roots charitable projects, launched its Ukraine Crisis Relief Fund page, stating that all donations to the fund will support humanitarian assistance in affected communities in Ukraine and surrounding regions where Ukrainian refugees have fled. You can donate here.
• The International Rescue Committee, founded in 1933, helps those affected by humanitarian crises and works in more than 40 affected countries, as well as communities in Europe and the Americas. According to its website, the IRC is on the ground in Poland and working to help displaced families. The site offers suggestions on how you can assist Ukraine, such as welcoming refugees and social media activism. You can donate here.
• Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross provides assistance for victims of armed conflict and has been working in Ukraine since 2014 to supply emergency assistance and support hospitals with medical equipment. To support the ICRC’s efforts in Ukraine, you can donate here.
• Journalists with the Kyiv Independent have done tremendous work covering the war, offering the world constant updates as they fear for themselves, their families and their homes. The Independent has started a GoFundMe asking for support, but they’ve also promoted a separate GoFundMe — “Keep Ukraine’s media going” — for journalists around the country who have received less international attention. “[Ukraine’s reporters] have shown extraordinary courage, but the reality on the ground is that most operations cannot continue from Ukraine alone,” one organizer wrote. “This fundraiser is aimed at helping media relocate, set-up back offices and continue their operations from neighboring countries.”
• Project Hope, an international health-care organization founded in the United States in 1958, works to empower health-care workers facing health crises, according to its website. For the Ukraine invasion, the organization says its emergency teams in Europe are sending medical supplies and standing by to provide health screening and care for refugees. You can donate here.
• Razom for Ukraine was founded in 2014 and has since launched efforts to build a stronger democracy in the country. Now, according to its website, the nonprofit is “focused on purchasing medical supplies for critical situations like blood loss and other tactical medicine items. We have a large procurement team of volunteers that tracks down and purchases supplies and a logistics team that then gets them to Ukraine.” Razom — which means “together” in Ukrainian — posted a list of the lifesaving supplies it has already purchased and is asking for more support here.
• Save the Children, founded more than a century ago, is blunt about the grueling nature of its work: “We work in the hardest-to-reach places, where it’s toughest to be a child,” its homepage says. The organization says it is “gravely concerned” for the children of Ukraine and Afghanistan. Its donation page says that $50 can prevent three children from going hungry for a month, $150 can provide warm blankets for 30 children, and $300 can furnish masks to refugee health workers on the front lines.
• Sunflower of Peace is a small nonprofit with ambitions to help Ukrainian orphans and internally displaced people. A post on its Facebook page in mid-February said it had launched a fundraiser for first-aid medical tactical backpacks. Each backpack, it says, can save up to 10 people. They’re packed with bandages and anti-hemorrhagic medicines, among other critical items. The group has worked mostly off its Facebook page, where it’s accepting donations.
• The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs oversees U.N. Crisis Relief, with donations going toward U.N. efforts to fund work in humanitarian crises. Primary goals include supporting lifesaving activities, filling funding gaps and expanding assistance in hard-to-reach areas, according to its website. You can donate here.
• The World Food Programme, the U.N.’s anti-hunger humanitarian organization, has launched emergency relief operations in Ukraine and surrounding border countries. WFP says it is scaling up to provide food assistance to 3.1 million Ukrainians affected by the conflict and has deployed 400 tons of food to the Ukrainian border this week. To support their efforts, click here.
• Voices of Children, a charitable foundation based in Ukraine, has been serving the psychological needs of children affected by the war in the country’s east since 2015, according to its website. The group’s psychologists specialize in art therapy and provide general psychosocial support with group classes or individual sessions. Many of its psychologists are based in the regions of Luhansk and Donetsk, areas that have long been controlled by Russian-backed separatists and that are on the front lines of the current, wider conflict. Now, Voices of Children is providing assistance to children and families all over Ukraine, even helping with evacuations. You can donate here.