And as I promised, here is the last in the ‘Promises, Promises’ series!

Celebrity

What do many celebrities, whether local fame in a small town or international superstardom, have in common?  They burn out and fall from the stars in a flaming display of self-destruction.  Why is that?  Often times it seems to be promising expectations they can’t live up to.  It might be they actually aren’t as talented as everyone thought. It might be they have the talent but don’t put in the work to bring that talent to the level needed.  Maybe their talent was only developed in one small area and once used up, there is no where to go.

Success

There are of course stories of wildly successful people who were pushed early on to become something. Think of Serena Williams in tennis, or Tiger Woods in golf.  They both had parents who had a huge vision for them, and that vision came true.  Both became superstars well beyond the expectations.  And they both were touted as examples of how children with talent could be trained and molded successfully so they would be able to sustain themselves and prosper in their field

Failure

But no parent is perfect at child rearing. And now child is perfect either.  So far it looks like Serena has navigated successfully through her fame and fortune.  I hope that continues. But we all know that Tiger, while living up to athletic expectations, fell from orbit and self-destructed. He is to be admired for fighting back and not giving up.  He still is golfing, still winning and still a force to be reckoned with.  But the illusion of his exalted character and status in the world fell hard and has not recovered.  

High Up

A big part of the force of the explosion and the media clamor over it was due to the height from which he fell. It wasn’t the height of a parent’s hopes for a young child. It wasn’t the height of a young phenom exploding onto the professional scene. It was the height of someone on the verge of being declared the best golfer in history.   That is a long way to fall.  It was sad to watch the wreck happen in real time. It was made even worse by knowing he brought it on himself.  

Do you know someone, or perhaps even are that someone, who has lived that life? Not just in sports, but in any arena of endeavor.  What are the lessons you have learned about this as a result?

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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman

Quote by Cyril Connelly, English author, 1903-1974

It is not an anomaly that Connelly is the author of this quote. He lived it.  Here is a passage from the Wikipedia entry about him.  

“Connolly followed this up (his novel ‘The Rock Pool’) with a book of non-fiction, Enemies of Promise (1938), the second half of which is autobiographical. In it he attempted to explain his failure to produce the literary masterpiece that he and others believed he should have been capable of writing.”

I used the title of his book as the title of this post, it was the obvious choice once I read that it was about his own promise issues.

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Those whom the gods would destroy, they first call promising