The Highs Are High & The Lows Are Low

• Do you want to discover and live into your full potential?

• Do you really want to accomplish your dreams, goals and desires?

• Do you want to be fabulously successful by every measure and in every area of your life?

If you answered yes to any or all of the above then also know this, ‘with the heights of accomplishment comes the depths of despair’. As we powerfully take on discovering our full potential, know that you can’t have one without the other. I didn’t make up the rules, our Creator did.

This is a Universal principle that is as timeless as the seasons and as certain as night and day. It’s nothing to be alarmed about and this awareness will serve you in your journey far more that thinking it is only the highs that are to be valued.

I remember like it was yesterday one of the first times I really started to scratch the surface of what this really meant. It was the spring of 1993 and we were at the NCAA Division III Wrestling Championships at the Coast Guard Academy in Annapolis, MD. I was the Head Assistant Wrestling coach and our team, UW-Stevens Point was ranked 3rd in the country, had just won our conference tournament, qualified 8 out of 10 wrestlers to the NCAA’s and went 7-1 in our first round. We were poised to possibly win the tournament or at least place in the top 3 for the first time in school history…until round two.

During the second round we lost the first match, then the second, and like domino’s it went downhill from there. We went 1-6 in that round and had no chance of winning or placing in the top 3. I was mad, discouraged, disappointed, and frustrated while sulking on a pole vault pit cushion when lo' and behold, I see an old curmudgeon coach from UW-River Falls named Byron James walking towards me.

Though a Hall of Fame coach, the late, great Byron was a despised nemesis to me at that time and we went together like oil and water. I was young, arrogant and he was an old geezer ‘has been’ to me. We beat his team up pretty bad during the year so I’m bracing for him to give it back to me in spades. He strolls on over, stops just shy of touching me and says, "funny thing about this sport we’re in…the highs are high, and the lows are low. Pick yourself up young man. It ain’t over yet”, then walks away.

Talk about true wisdom punching me right in the nose! What a full of myself idiot I was compared to the wise counsel he lovingly shared. I never forgot that and have since realized that the heights to which one aspires is in direct correlation to the depths one must also be willing to endure.

At the end of the day, life really is perfect in its imperfection. The only challenge we really have is our perspective in often times thinking it should look different than what it does. Know that with the ups will come the downs and in both be thankful, grateful and appreciate the sheer joy in being able to fully feel all of it. That’s what makes us human and this understanding is what allows one to truly discover and live into their full potential. Enjoy the journey.

Believe…