Skills from Competing Transitions to Other Areas

I talked yesterday about being concerned that my friends who love pool my be deterred or confused by my happiness to not be playing pool anymore. 

What I want to also say is I don't think retirement from pool means I'm not still working hard or being challenged.

I watched a show the other day about this pro skater who was admired and envied by many of the other pro skaters. It was very interesting because everyone talked about how he just quit the game one day when he wanted to. One of his friends said a lot of pro skaters (well, this is probably true for most athletes), that a lot of them quit competing when they lose their sponsorship, or they get hurt, or start a family or something like that. But this pro skater (his name was Heath Kirchart) decided on his own one day that it was just simply time for him to quit; and he has not once regretted his decision.

He was one the TOP skaters around! Doing extremely tough jumps with intricate aspects that not many others could do. He was adored and admired. So, everyone did not understand and were very surprised he could just quit so easily. 

It's important to point out he didn't stop doing things in retirement that were creative or mentally tough, hard, or challenging. On the contrary, he is actually doing some pretty amazing, challenging things. So while his sport of choice used to be pro skating, he just transitioned being challenged in other ways.

This really resonated with me. I didn't even realize I am kinda doing the same thing. 

I'm still successful, just not with pool anymore, and instead in a different part of my life (my job). You see, I want to be a better employee at my job, and I'm up for the challenge. So, I work hard, need to be mentally strong at times, handle stress, and am more involved to put 100% of my focus now towards my career. Just like I was doing with pool! Don't get me wrong, I still have more peace without competing in pool, but the hard work to become a top player is now directed towards a different area: my career.

I hadn't thought about this connection at all til I watched that tv show about Heath. 

Pretty cool!

BTW, Heath added something else pretty profound:  "I just think that life is really long," he says. "And I didn't want skateboarding to be the only side of life I saw."

Something for us all to ponder.