Gardner is interested in what produces the will to excel: not just the capacity for excellence but the motivation to pursue it consistently, even when it is difficult, unrewarded, or socially inconvenient. He identifies several sources of this motivation. The first is genuine love of the craft: people who find deep satisfaction in the activity itself, independent of external recognition, tend to sustain excellence over a longer period and at a higher level than those who are primarily motivated by reward or comparison. The second is the standard: people who have internalised a clear sense of what excellence in their field looks like have a constant internal reference point that motivates them to keep improving. This is not perfectionism, which can be paralysing. It is the productive sense of the distance between where you are and where the best practitioners of your field are. The third is purpose: people whose work is connected to something they believe matters beyond their own interests tend to sustain motivation through difficulty that defeats those who are working purely for self-interested reasons. Gardner also addresses the social dimension: societies that recognise and celebrate excellence encourage its pursuit. Societies that treat excellence with suspicion or indifference discourage it. The individual's will to excel is partly a personal quality and partly a response to the social environment that either nurtures or suppresses it.