This may sound funny, but it is true, and I know because I lived.

Striving to achieve something big, no matter what that may be, comes at a price.  It takes work beyond what everyone would consider reasonable, toeing the line between obsession and insanity.  Most extraordinary achievers are tortured individuals, consumed with the thought of not being enough, that someone is coming to take away everything they have worked for.  Everyone sees them on stage winning the awards and the prize money, but almost no one knows how hard the climb up to the stage truly is.  And that climb is no picnic, in fact it can be quite the bumpy road to get there.  You set goals and work towards them, only to hit them and move the bar a little higher.  You get lost in the process, never taking time to enjoy the wins for long, because you think there is always more work to be done.   As Alex Hormozi says:

“You’ve already achieved goals that you said would make you happy” 

Now imagine spending most of your life working towards a lofty goal, let’s use the Olympics as an example, and finishing second.  Your entire life has revolved around the idea that you could be the very best at something, literally one of one on planet Earth.  Rarified air, and all the benefits that go along with it, and you finish one-one hundredth of a second behind someone else who had the same dream.  Literally 1/100th of a second…imagine the weight of that 1/100th of a second, and that you would carry around for your lifetime knowing you were that close but came up short.  The silver medalist is always the unhappiest of the three on the podium.  The gold medalist won, and the bronze medalist almost missed getting a medal altogether.  It’s the one in the middle who will suffer the most.

It took me a long time to recover from my own version of this.  In my athletic career I was not the best of the best.  On a state level, I may have had my reign of terror, going 135-9 over a five-year period.  But when venturing out to the Pro Tour, I was mediocre at best among that group.  I had a losing record at that level; once I reached a certain ranking I no longer needed to qualify (win my way in) to the main draw.  I started in the round of 32 and was paired up against one of the top four players in the world.  I was a warmup match for them, a 30-minute obligation as a formality to the rest of their weekend.  The guy I roomed with was far better than I was and would beat on me in practice sessions all the time.  He was ranked around #12 for most of his time on Tour and had two semi-final showings to his credit.  We only ever faced one another in a Pro match once, and I never scored a single point.  Now, there were some external factors that contributed to this devastating loss, but even so, it was ultra embarrassing to say the least.  I was truly unhappy about that for a really long time.  I had a few moments in the sun, but not many at this level.

When I retired, I was burnt to a crisp, unable to stomach the idea of stepping on to the court and going through the motions one more time.  The past year on Tour was comprised mostly of just that, going through the motions and continuing down a path I had committed to oh so long ago.  I didn’t know who I was if I wasn’t a Pro Racquetball Player.  It took a long time to find my center again.

Back to the Hormozi quote above…I lost sight of what I had said to myself a long time ago.  The goals were much smaller at first, like winning the C division (3.0) in the next tournament.  A year later winning the A division (4.0) and so on.  As I climbed the ladder of success, the goals continued to elevate.  A necessary part of the of the process for continued improvement, but this is where I failed…I failed to acknowledge how much I had accomplished thus far.  A career-ending injury was one missed step away, and all of it would end in a moment’s notice.  Would I have been happier if I never got the chance to lose a Pro match to one of my best friends without scoring a point?  Absolutely not, but I couldn’t keep this context in mind until much later.  I was the unhappy Silver Medalist for much of my career, despite having been the envy of so many others.  I say that as humbly as possible, as I know others out there that I competed with who fell short most if not all the times we played one another, and I have to assume they feel the same way.  Right after my time on the Tour there came along a guy who was so dominate that three different guys who were number two in the world never beat him once.  Imagine, being the next best guy in the world, only to lose every Sunday finals that you played in for several years.  Unhappy Silver Medalists.

It is the nature of the beast (best) that you are never satisfied, that you want more than your share and then some.  Your desire is to reach your own pinnacle of performance and then stay at that level for as long as possible.  For many, life is about getting by on the path of least resistance, not rocking the boat and staying in the middle of the herd.  And then there are some of us who despise the idea of mediocrity.  I never wanted a “regular” life, the traditional route of going to college, getting a corporate job by age 26, married with kids by 30 and spending the rest of the next dozen years at Saturday morning soccer games.  Some are able to do all of the above, be a high performing athlete or entrepreneur and still have the happy family life, but that wasn’t in the cards for me it seems.  I went all in on the one thing I knew I’d never have another shot at, and ran it to the max.  I hit my ceiling at number 18 in the world, rode the crest of that wave for three years and then crashed and burned soon after.  But I do not regret any of it, because it is a huge part of me as the man I am today.  And, I answered the question that would have plagued me the rest of my life if I hadn’t taken my shot:  “What if?”

I will spoon-feed you the take-aways just in case you find yourself in some part of this same journey, whatever your version is:

• Be sure to be celebrate the achievements, not just the wins.  Pat yourself on the back for all the hard work you do.
• Be sure to stop and look around every once in a while and understand that this journey is fleeting and that you have the privilege to be doing something .001% of the Earth’s population ever gets to do.  Enjoy the ride while it lasts, it will be shorter than you imagined.
• This journey has set you up for success in many other fields, as these experiences are very transferable to other facets of business and life.  Never forget that.
• Only quitters really lose; anyone willing to strive mightily and fail greatly knows real victories.  Pay no attention to the timid souls on the sidelines who judge what you did or how you went about it.  They have no clue…
• Stay humble, as your ability to jump higher, run faster or hit a ball does NOT transfer to making you a better human, it just makes you a more capable athlete.  Learn the difference and learn it quickly.
• Don’t base your life (and lifestyle) on the idea that things will stay the same forever.  Money is fleeting and the time you spend at the top of the pile is shorter than you’d ever imagine.   The average NFL running back’s career is three years…3 years!  Plan for the future and plan your finances well.
• Give this journey everything you have, for as long as you can, and then be done with it
• Send the elevator back down.   Be sure to find a way to help the next generation do what you got a chance to do, and maybe even a little more than you.

As always, I wish you luck in your endeavors.