Holding Tension for Growth
How tension creates energy
If you can’t hold the tension between a big goal and the real possibility of failure, you’ll stay trapped in the warmth of comfort—safe, but stagnant. Most people avoid this tension at all costs, shrinking their vision to dodge the risk. But safety breeds sameness. True differentiation begins when you create the internal space to hold both the bold, even delusional, goal and the failures that come with it.
Tension creates energy. Think of a bow and arrow. I have to pull back on the string to create tension. Then, when I release, the arrow flies.
Growth, excellence, and our ability to create, hold, and release tension. This is the game. In business, in sports, in marriage, in parenting.
As an archery hunter, I can do all the prep to find elk in the woods. But if I can’t hold the tension of the bow under pressure, there is no chance I will succeed.
I work with business leaders and athletes. Both must hold the tension of caring deeply, working relentlessly, and putting in a ton of effort while also knowing failure, rejection, and judgment will happen.
They must hold the tension of being passionately driven in the pursuit of excellence while surrendering to the outcome.
Most people can create tension. Big goals. Big dreams. Ambition. That part is easy. Few can hold it.
Big dreams come with big fears, fears that hold most people back: failure, rejection, judgment, unworthiness. We struggle to hold them because we judge the parts of us that are scared.
But here’s the truth.
Transformation happens when we develop the capacity to hold both:
The insecure and the confident.
The excited and the scared.
The whole and the unworthy.
The scarce and the abundant.
Most people try to fight one side, suppress it, push it away. But when we resist a part of ourselves, we can't create space. The real shift happens when we stop resisting and start allowing.
Once we can hold it, we can release it through full acceptance. We stop wasting energy trying to suppress parts of ourselves. We release them, and the energy flows.
This is what playing full out looks like. When we hold this tension, we create more space for gratitude, joy, and abundance.
You can’t do this in the mind alone. It’s beyond mindset.
It’s the integration of mind and body. Your mind projects the tension, but your body determines whether you can hold it or collapse under it.
This is where my mastery lies. Helping people open themselves up, hold and release, drop into flow, and create a far bigger reality than they thought possible.
The edge in peak performance is holding and releasing.
Everything else follows.
It’s time to move. Let the good river flow.