This realization both fascinates & scares me.
I remember when we first formed this movement w some of the founding members: Tyler Hamilton was one of them.
Tyler was a teammate of Lance Armstrong, winning the Tour de France 3x in a row. Based on his success he was offered a chance to ring the opening bell at the NYSE…a big honor.
When I met Tyler, we were in a room w others like hockey great Theo Fleury, USA Swimming gold medalists Amanda Beard & Anita Nall, & Aussie Rugby National Team player, Marc Stcherbina. We each started opening up abt our challenges we’d faced in life. There was a lot of vulnerable sharing.
Tyler in particular shared that the morning he got to ring the bell, was perhaps one of the worst of his life. Here he was, a multiple time winner of the biggest trophy in his sport, being honored on one of biggest stages in the world – & all he could feel was: “This is it? This isn’t how I expected it. This doesn’t feel like the top of the world.”
Tyler will tell you he was entrenched in one of the darkest periods of his life – describing that it felt like a lead blanket was over him all the time. But this theme of: expecting that a big moment would be “a top of the world feeling”…& then it just not feeling that way, has come up so often since, as I’ve gotten to know ppl’s stories.
NFL’er Reggie Walker’s told me he thought making it to the NFL would be the moment he could take a deep breath, & he’d finally feel “happy”…until he made it, & that didn’t happen.
I hear stories from everyday folks, after: getting married/having their wedding, bar/bat mitzvahs of children, making partner at a firm, winning an award – where the expectations are not lived up to…& folks end up feeling worse – in the moment, or shortly after.
I thought abt this as Katie Meyer’s fam/friends have come out recently talking abt her “perfectionist ways.” She’s someone who’d won the National Championship w Stanford in 2019. Was that feeling not enough, that she chased more of a high/happiness in more wins? We don’t/won’t know.
All I’ve learned is happiness doesn’t come from accomplishments or events. It comes from peace within.
