What I learned early on about success
I was in sleep away camp for the first time. I wasn’t the most popular kid and I wasn’t the least. It was the year going into the 9th grade and I had just left a private school where popularity was a deep struggle I had failed to feel successful in. Never before had I surfed or been on a surfboard but there were no other activities left when I went to sign up one week so I took sail boarding lessons (or windsurfing). The counselor who taught it was a really nice guy named Andy with one of those really cool British accents. You just wanted to hear him talk all day. What I really liked about him was that he didn’t seem to judge me (or anyone) even though I was terrible at something he excelled at. The first session I remember we didn’t even get to put the sail on the board. It was all about learning simply to balance on the board.
At some point we did get up on the sail and I will never forget the feeling that came the first time that I was able to catch the wind and get some momentum going across that lake. All of a sudden nothing else mattered! It didn’t matter that the girl I really liked wasn’t into me. It didn’t matter that the guys in the older bunks seemed to want to kick my ass although I never had any idea why. Nothing mattered other than the fact that I felt this intense freedom from sailing across the lake with nothing around me but me, the wind, the sailboard and Andy eventually calling me to come back in because our time was up! As I write this I realize I need to get out and do this again! What an amazing rush it is!
So at the end of the summer we would always have “Color Wars”. The camp was divided into two or four teams each with a different color and we would engage in many competitions. Including a sail boarding race. Since I had been doing it all summer I was assigned to that team. The rest of this story I swear is a true story and I think you will agree it is like something out of one of those after school specials that we used to watch as kids. I was up against the ONE guy who was know for being an amazing sailboarder. He had experience over me and he had strength and endurance over me. In most people’s minds as well as based on what they said to me I had absolutely no chance at beating this guy. I don’t remember for sure what I was thinking going into this. Probably the same, but something happened along the say. There was an offshore wind that day. This means that the wind was blowing from behind us out into the water. The race was simple. You had to sail out all the way to a buoy and then come back in. Getting out was not a problem because the wind was in our favor, but coming back in would be the real challenge. You had to traverse to get back in. This meant you had to go side to side. My competitor reached the bouy in ½ the time it took me. It seemed clear that everyone was right. There was no way I had this guy. Then it hit me. The exact inspiration I needed to win. He was using his assets – his strength, experience, and endurance to win and it was working. I had to capitalize on my assets. I couldn’t beat him on HIS strengths so I had to beat him on MY strengths. My brains – my ability to think creatively on the spot and act accordingly. So I got to the buoy and was caught up with him because he was struggling to go against the wind. I realized that all I had to do was take one long stride sideways and all the way away from the end point. Positioned right it would just be one long stride all the way in. The traversing was slowing him down and he was pivoting and falling into the water. I had nothing to lose really since I was the underdog anyway. Maybe this was why I was able to relax and think. So I did it and I can remember the people on shore yelling out to me “what are you doing?! You’re going the wrong way?!” that is until I got far enough out, did my turn and headed straight in. I could hear the noise from my team turn from disappointment to excitement. As they saw me zooming in at top speed almost sideways right toward the goal. I was victorious and ecstatic. King for a day. Even the girl who I had the hugest crush on and who pretended to like me for a minute only so that she could tell me off for being an arrogant ass came over to me and apologized for the things she had said to me as we were walking up from the lake at the end of that day.
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