The High's Aren't So High and the Low's Aren't So Low

Early on in my luge career I was given this advice. Doesn’t seem like much but it was some of the best advice I ever received. But what exactly does it mean?

When you work so hard for success it’s easy to overreact once that success comes. For us we had difficulty putting two race runs together. We’d get one run down clean but we’d seem to always screw one of them up. Disaster! We’d be down in the dumps. And down there often.

When success did come, and two runs came together, we would be ecstatic. I mean jump-out-of-your-skin giddy with excitement. This wasn’t the answer either. Our ups and downs looked like the readout on a heart beat machine. Up and down. Up and down.

But when my coach Lin Hancock told us, “Guys. The highs aren’t so high. And the low’s aren’t so low. You need to stay even,” It all started to make sense.

When you adopt this attitude of consistent persistence your approach becomes more businesslike. It’s just a matter of getting it done. You can celebrate little victories but you must quickly get back to work as usual.

And the same approach goes for the failures as well. You must not have them ruin your day. They are just a blip on the radar of success. Learn from them, and move forward.

You might think that Lin gave us this advice when we were down in the dumps. Actually, he gave it to us right after one of our greatest victories. We had struggled and struggled and finally things came through. I was a huge success. But Lin took us aside and said, “Boys, the high’s aren’t so high, and the low’s aren’t so low. Keep your head straight and get back to work.”