Senator Charles “Chuck” Winder is no stranger to accomplishment. He has been elected to the Idaho State Senate three times, is currently running unopposed for his fourth term, served several years in the military, built a successful business and, with his wife, raised a family. These only skim the top of his list of achievements.

But Senator Winder doesn’t consider himself any better, or any more excellent, than any one else. Instead, he believes that achieving excellence is subjective; excellence is in the idea that you want to do something, and then excelling in whatever way is meaningful to your particular purpose.

According to Senator Winder, excellence can come in many forms, be it creating life-saving medical technology, starting a business, or committing to your family.

And while Senator Winder understands excellence as something that can be achieved in many ways and in many facets of life, he also believes excellence is deeply rooted in accountability, not only to others, but also to oneself.

Winder spoke with Price Associates about the path to where he is today as well as the core principles and beliefs that helped him achieve his own excellence.

What does achieving excellence mean to you?

It comes down to how you define excellence. Excellence can be achieved by a lot of different people. I don’t care whether it’s in athletics, business, or raising a family. There is just that idea that they want excellence in their life, they want to do things right and well, and they feel that produces a better business, a better outcome, a better family. It’s all levels of our culture where it is applicable.

I’ve been really involved with Special Olympics over the years and I see those young people do amazing things. That, to them, is at a higher level of excellence than an Olympic athlete because the Olympic athlete sometimes doesn’t have the same type of barriers to overcome.

What are some core principles of excellence that you’ve followed over the years?

I remember back to one time I was in front of a college class. I was talking to them and at that time we didn’t have smart phones. We had hand written schedules and calendars. I took my pocket calendar out and said, “This has helped me be successful.”

One of the reasons is that being on time, being punctual, and being able to keep the promises you make to people to show up, that’s important. The idea of being prepared and doing your homework before you go somewhere and trying to find out what you can about people and the business they run or whatever it is they are doing so you understand them better is one thing that’s always helped me. The most important thing is being a good listener and then being able to take what you hear and double check with them to make sure you heard it the right way.

I sat down with a fella who, if I mentioned his name most people wouldn’t think he was a friend or someone I consider a confidant or even a mentor to some extent, but he served a long time in state politics and national and his council to me was: know what you believe and stick with it, because that’s all you’re going to have when you leave.

That’s kind of the way I’ve tried to approach it; know what all of my core values are and what my beliefs are, and try and stick with them.

How has following principles of excellence impacted your life?

I owned my own business for 30 years in real estate. A lot of people think in real estate you’re selling buildings or properties or homes, but you’re not. You’re selling services to people. You need to treat people well on both sides of an issue and try and be balanced in your approach and, the golden rule, think of how you want to be treated and treat people the same way.

What I look to is consistency; I have clients and customers that I started out business with 35-40 years ago. Whether I’ve done it excellently or not, I don’t know, but my principles were there to look after them, be considerate of them, and put their needs before mine. In my business and in my life those principles have paid off.

What responsibility do senior leaders have in fostering excellence in younger leaders?

The generation gap makes it more difficult for us to actually find the kind of things that really are your hot buttons, the things that are going to motivate you and your generation to seek out excellence. The whole culture has really been in turmoil: what are the right values; whose values are the right ones; who has the right to present their values and who doesn’t?

You kind of look to people who have wisdom and experience and you really have to go out and learn your own experience, get knocked on the head a few times and go, “Oh that’s what they meant when they said that.”

What’s the best way to fill the generation gap?

We have an overused term of mentor. When you mentor people in different ages, and I’ve had several mentors in my life who have really been beneficial to me and have helped me who were older, it’s up to the younger person to maybe not agree with everything the other person does or has done, but to listen, gather from their experience, learn from that experience, be willing to set aside sometimes their own point of view to hear another, and sometimes just to listen.

Finding people you can trust to talk to about, it could be business, it could be personal things in life like how do you deal with certain crises then, I think break that generation gap down to where it becomes very narrow because you’re going to go through the same things in life I’ve gone through.

What would you say about the state of leaders today?

In general, on the national level, I think there is a perception that we (the United States) don’t have any good leadership.

I think there are good leaders; there is such pressure to be politically correct and sometimes discussions that are necessary don’t happen. They certainty don’t happen in an environment or in a way that really achieves something positive. I think it would be nice if people could actually sit down on opposing points of view, discuss and work through those and develop a respect for each others positions and then try and come to some common solution.

It’s just kind of the nature of the beast and because of the Internet and blogging and all of the things that can be communicated in a millisecond, it is easy for everyone to take shots at everyone, so its becoming more and more difficult to be a leader. I think it comes down to your basic character, be it at work or away from work. It’s how you interact with people.

Character, moral standards, ethical standards and professional standards are important in achieving excellence.

How did practices you learned in the military help to instill this idea of excellence in you?

In lots of ways!

There was an email going around about a month ago and it was the admiral addressing a class of grads about how to be successful in life. One of the first points he made was to make your bed every day.

Being in the military, I know how that applies because it’s doing the little things; it’s being routine; it’s being kind of a steadfast employee who can accomplish your day. In doing those things you actually get a sense of accomplishment.

Apply that to anything in your life, your work at the office, whatever it is, make it every day. Get the work done that day they asked you to. Those little things do make a difference.

I think back to the military, they used to actually come in and measure our sheets as to whether they, I can’t remember the exact nature, but it had to be something like six inches by six inches. If you were even a quarter of an inch off, you got in trouble and they threw your stuff all over the room.

When you think about how that applies to the military and to flying, it’s very detailed, it’s not very safe. You make sure you pay attention to your checklist, make sure you do things procedurally in life, know the limitations of the aircraft you’re flying, know the details.

I think that helps you in the military, and I think that helps you in life.