Hello,
My name is Lew Redman.
Thank you so much for listening.
Today,
I want to share with you a little talk about potential and dreams.
And I'll start with the dreams we have at night.
Do you have any recurring dreams?
I have one that happens so often,
It screams,
Something meaningful is here.
That's as far as my limited understanding goes.
I know the dream is important,
But what am I to do about it?
Before I tell you about the dream,
Here's some context.
Growing up,
I was an athlete.
I loved playing every sport imaginable,
Besides football,
Because my skinny bones cannot take a hit.
I was most attracted to and talented at basketball.
I loved the sound of the ball swishing in the net,
The smell of old gymnasiums,
And the squeaky sound of my shoes moving through the court.
Not to mention,
I was lightning quick and could drain three balls.
I played travel teams until high school and then had a breakout freshman season,
Averaging over 20 points per game.
It was at this time that my basketball career hit a turning point.
In another life,
I can see myself doubling down on training,
Sweating my butt off in the summer sessions,
And fully committing myself to the sport.
In that fictionary tale,
I see a scholarship to some division three school,
An intimate college experience,
And cherished sports memories.
However,
My insecure 15-year-old self headed down another path.
Freshman year,
I started drinking.
Once alcohol entered the picture,
Basketball was never the same.
I completely botched my sophomore year tryouts,
Not realizing how out of shape I'd be from beer and cigarettes.
While I still made junior varsity,
It was a disappointment and one I never recovered from.
I still played my final two years,
But I look back and I see a mountain of wasted potential.
Cue my recurring dream.
I find myself back in my high school gym practicing drills.
I graduated from high school.
However,
I have another chance to suit up and play a final season with the team.
I'm so excited to devote myself to the training and take advantage of this opportunity.
It's as if I can't get enough.
I do drills,
I run sprints.
I'm ready to redeem myself.
Then,
At some point,
I wake up.
And as I open my eyes to reality,
A wave of disappointment hits.
In my dream,
I'm rewriting my script,
Tapping into unlived potential.
When I awake,
I sit with the realization that I'm a balding 34-year-old and any potential to compete in basketball is long gone.
There will be no redemptive season.
Or can there?
Good or bad,
The unfulfilled potential of my youth has driven me for the last nine years.
I'm not kidding myself that I had any real shot at basketball.
The number of mediocre players lamenting what could have happened in high school is endless.
That's not what's important.
What matters is that I never really tried.
I never saw what I could have been,
Even if it wouldn't amount to much.
This existential regret haunts my dreams.
When I stopped drinking,
I got that chance back,
Although not in sports,
But in life.
While it no longer involves basketball,
I'm here to express my fullest creative potential.
I don't wanna wake up to a dream when I'm 94 to a life I didn't fully live.
I know one truth.
We are capable of so much more than we think.
Some choose to find out what that means and others settle for wherever the boat of life drifts them.
I've done things I never thought I could do,
And it's only just the beginning.
That journey of self-exploration and creativity excites me.
The possibilities are endless.
Maybe you're like me.
You sense you have great potential and don't wanna leave this place with regrets.
You wanna experience all that life has in store for you.
You wanna get your creative ideas off the ground and feel fulfilled.
I'm so lucky that I get to help people do just this.
A principle of my coaching is that everything is always more than it seems.
To realize our potential,
We need the support of others who can reflect back what we don't see,
Give us direction,
And challenge us to break out of routine.
Since I was eight years old,
I had a gift for seeing the potential in others.
Now I not only see it,
I have the skills to help people access it.
And so part of that is just sharing my story,
Sharing my journey like I am right now,
Hoping that it inspires you to take whatever that next step is in your life,
Hoping that it encourages you to see that you are capable of more than you're giving yourself credit for.
And if you do your inner work,
Then you can find the alignment and the trust that you are being guided and that you can live the potential that is within.
There's a great question from Jim Rome where he says,
How tall can a tree grow?
And the answer is as tall as it can.
Meaning that it grows,
It lives its full potential.
It has that nature,
It unfolds.
And we too as humans have that potential.
And so I root for you.
I'm sending this to say,
Keep going,
Keep learning,
Keep developing your potential and know that I am rooting for you and your real life dreams.
Thank you so much for listening.
Let me know how this landed by leaving a comment.
And if you'd like more support in realizing your potential,
So much of what I do on Insight Timer is in service of that.
If you'd like some more inspiration specifically,
I have a course,
21 Days of Mourning,
Motivation and Inspiration to help guide you and support you on your path of accessing all that you are meant to access in yourself.
You can find that course in the courses page of my profile.
Thank you so much again for the opportunity to share with you is deeply meaningful for me and I am grateful for you.
Talk soon.
Namaste.
