“Mountaintops inspire leaders but valleys mature them.” (Winston Churchill)
This past summer, I went golfing with my wife and her parents. Now, this might seem like the opening line to a joke, but I assure you that they are nice people and I would never say a bad word about them – at least until they stop reading my articles.
About halfway into the round, I finally birdied a hole and my father-in-law said “It’s about time. I’ve waited 10 years to see you get a birdie.”
I think I saw a playful smile on his face.
Truth is that I quit golf cold-turkey 10 years ago after a charity golf event. I loved golf. I played a lot, but not enough to be “good”. At that golf event, I had a couple of my longest drives ever. I even drove the green of a 320-yard Par 4 hole. I then finished it out with the Eagle putt – the fourth of my career.
#HumbleBrag
However, I also lost 13 Titleist ProVI balls that day. At a cost of $4.00/ball, that became quite costly.
It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.
Before I left the parking lot that day, I had given my top-of-the-line Ping driver to my playing partner and vowed to never play again. This was made easier when I sold all my golf stuff at yard sale soon thereafter.
That day, I was reminded that we are never as good as our high moments. We’ll be up and seemingly on top of our game (whatever that may be), but that doesn’t mean we’ve arrived or have mastered anything. Yet we sometimes act like it, either lording it over people or failing to see the need for continual learning or improving.
It is also important to understand that we are never as bad as our lowest moments. They might be stressful, discouraging, or result in negative consequences but we can rise again. We can overcome our challenges. Our failures do not need to be our defining moments.
We’ll all experience peaks and valleys in life. It’s important to maintain a healthy perspective about both. Likewise, it’s also important to see others through this same lens. None of us needs to be kicked when we are down and none of us needs to be on a pedestal when things are going well.
Spencer Johnson, the author of Who Moved My Cheese, wrote a book called Peaks and Valleys and he said “Between peaks there are always valleys. How you manage your valleys determine how soon you reach your next peak.”
Remember that we are all going to experience our fair share of peaks and valleys. We shouldn’t get too high or too low when we find ourselves in one or the other.