Taking A Fall

Consider this post a special dedication for my son Fox.
As you’ll already know, he carries a tremendous amount of responsibility on his small shoulders as the lead in Billy Elliot: The Musical.
Every night he’s on stage, I stand outside the theatre and listen to the audience blow the roof off the building when Fox does his show-stopping signature song ‘Electricity’.
There’s a crescendo right at the end of the song when Fox adds an extra spin, runs up the wall and does a backward somersault.
It’s a spectacular move and the audience loves it. (Here it is )
But then on Saturday night, they didn’t seem to love it as much as usual.
It turns out, Fox missed his mark and didn’t do the flip.
He was inconsolable all the way home because he’s such a perfectionist.
So I explained to him that when your A-game is as good as his, you need the occasional fall from grace to put it all into perspective.
When excellence is your day-to-day reality, it stops feeling like excellence and starts to feel rather ordinary.
When a mistake is made, it’s a great chance to remind yourself just how great you usually are.
As I told Fox after the show, without the low you can’t judge the high.
Until you’ve felt the sting of defeat, you can’t possibly enjoy the significance of the victories.