The pain of the Journey Fades in the Absolute Ecstasy of Victory!

When you hit the dip look for encouragement to keep going. Maybe from others at XTrep. Maybe from an old friend. Maybe deep down within yourself.

I won a national championship in soccer when I was in college and I can tell you winning feels great. It's been 25 years but remembering that moment still brings joy. A bunch of us (pictured above) just reconnected during the coronavirus on Zoom and while we didn't talk about the championship long, different guys still had shirts or warmups or pulled out their national championship plaque. I searched for mine but I think I told my mom to throw all of my trophies away one time when I went home as a young adult. It's all right. No one can ever take away the feeling of being a champion from me.

During my first year of college soccer, we lost in the national championship game. In my second year, we came in overly confident and lost in the first round. In my third and final year, I was traveling with 3 other soccer players to summer camps representing the school. We would usually go to bed around midnight after a long day of camp and crawl out of bed at 5:30 to go for an early run.

When we got back to school for the start of the season we were already all in great shape. One day after practice on a cold, rainy September day in Pennsylvania coach dismissed us for showers and dinner. One of us said, "Let's do some extra hills before we finish." I remember all the younger guys going straight to dinner and all the seniors heading for the hills. They obviously were not acquainted with the pain of loss and were willing to risk it to get to dinner ten minutes earlier. Not us. We were going to do everything in our power to put ourselves in the best possible position to win. All the pain of the journey fades in the absolute ecstasy of victory.

We won the national Championship handily and I had the final goal with 2 1/2 minutes to go in my college career. That night on the way home in the school bus we stopped on the beach around 10:30 at night and sat around shared in the joy of winning. If you are in the dip in your entrepreneurial journey and know you should not give up watch the video below as encouragement. If you are an entrepreneur and I can be of help in any way please reach out to me. Remember the Pain of Journey Fades in the Absolute Ecstasy of Victory.