Episode 202: Are Participation Trophies Ruining Society?

Ready?

Yeah, I've been ready my whole life.

All right.

You're born.

I'm with, we're born, you're born ready.

Okay, this is now solo episode.

This is now solo episode number two.

And

I have my foil yet again with me, Shawnee,

who makes it so much more not just comfortable, but fun to do it with you.

That's such a great, I love that.

Yeah, and you know what?

Also, she's become like an accountability partner with this because, you know, sometimes when you're left to your own devices, you can start doing all these other things and go on tangents and everything like that.

But when I know that you're here or we have a plan to do it.

You look so hot.

Thank you.

I should help but photograph you right now.

Shawnee, yeah, she's just, she's just screwing with me right now.

No, I'm really not.

She looks great, guys.

You can watch the video so you can actually attest to that.

I just took a good, I took a photo of the

solo episode supposed to be about.

Okay.

It's only, but thank you.

And I listen,

I always invite and appreciate compliments.

So thank you.

But I was going to say that in life, sometimes we need accountability partners or people who keep us accountable to doing things, or else we can go astray and awry and then not get the things we want to get done done or get our goals accomplished.

And one of my missions for 2023 is to really do more of these solo episodes, which we're doing right now.

But I also don't believe in waiting for that day.

Don't wait till January 1st to start whatever you want to start.

Start now, go now,

and implement those habits and rituals early.

There's no such thing as waiting until that day.

That day is so arbitrary.

January 1st.

Now we have to now start losing weight or start doing whatever we're trying to do.

So with that being said, this is now solo episode number two.

Thanks, Sydney.

That's Sydney in the background, who, by the way, I think Sydney single-handedly sold more books for me thus far than any other promotion in this book launch, in this strategy.

It's unbelievable.

She was the best ad.

That was the best ad read I've seen in probably a long time.

Oh, amazing.

Yeah.

I mean, she's going to take my job in no time.

You know, like she's going to be a podcaster at the age of ripe old age of seven.

And

yes, and she is about to be eight.

Thank you, Sydney.

So the other thing is, even though we, I have Shawnee as my accountability and my foil.

Yes, thank you.

We now started this episode really late.

So I'm exhausted.

She's exhausted.

It's dark.

We have, I don't know, like we were supposed to start this like at four o'clock.

It's now seven.

It's now seven o'clock.

I don't know how this happens, but this is what happens.

So anyway, thank you for joining us.

If you're listening, if you're still listening, thank you for listening.

Also, it's only two minutes in.

I really hope that they're still.

I know, they could be, they could have actually, if listen, if I was them, I would have actually like, you know, maybe

hung up on that one.

Yeah, I'm just babbling.

I'm just babbling and babbling.

But I want to say something.

I want to say, by the way, my book is now finally out.

Thank you for all of you guys who pre-ordered it.

I so appreciate it.

It's number one in business right now on Amazon, which is all due to you guys and people who've actually pre-ordered it.

So, I really want to say thank you.

If you've read any of the book, if you're listening and also have the book, please leave me a review.

Let me know what you think so far.

And/or, of course, on the podcast, let me know what episodes that you like, which more you want me to lean into more, what kind of guests that you want me to go and get.

All that

feedback is super important for me and for people to know who I work with.

So, then we can give you guys more of what you are looking for.

With that now being said, I figured that with these solo episodes, we can dive into different principles.

In my book, Bigger, Better, Bolder,

we have 16, or I shouldn't say we.

I write 16 principles of how to become more bold and to go after what you want.

And I really wanted this book to be very actionable, very practical, and kind of like a blueprint.

So if you're somebody who is struggling with asking for what you want or chasing with what you want,

I'm hoping that this book can lay out a really nice blueprint and ways that you can practice being bold.

Boldness is a skill.

I say it all the time, like anything else, karate,

Spanish.

Shawnee, name another skill.

Jiu-Jitsu, art, weightlifting, cooking.

All of those.

Makeup.

Makeup, which I still, I mean.

Speaking, public speaking.

Yeah, it's a good one too.

But the bottom line is boldness is just a skill like anything else.

You got to practice it.

You got to practice it, be consistent with time, doing it over and over and over again to get better and better.

And it's a muscle, right?

If you want to be strong, you don't go to the gym once and then think you're going to be strong for the rest of your life, right?

You got to be consistent, work at it daily to maintain that strength, just the same as boldness.

You know, you got to work at it consistently to get to be bold.

And then when you are bold, it's not like it's game over and then you can just, you know, rest on those laurels because it's always a work in progress, right?

Even with me, you know, a lot of times

I get super.

filled with self-doubt and fear and all those other things.

And I catch myself not being as bold as I preach sometimes.

And I got to remind myself that, you know, the best way to get

over something is to sometimes go through something.

I like that.

So,

and which is why one of the things we talk about in this book actually is self-efficacy.

If you think you can, you can, right?

If you think you can't, you can't, you cannot.

But the feeling that you can

is super, super important to actually going through life and to actually do these little small baby steps.

As you see yourself, you know,

succeeding or accomplish or finishing, I should say, finishing something, it gives you the confidence and the really the self-esteem to kind of go to the next thing.

So let's talk about self-efficacy.

Yeah, let's.

No, I do think it's really important.

I say that all the time, you know, if you're going to just do something, like, why doubt yourself before you've even tried?

And also, if you fail, so you fail, but like, just try again, figure out a different way.

You can always do something.

You can always get it done.

It's just about figuring it out.

The one thing that I think is really important is that when we're at a young age, we're either, I think now we're living in a time where there's so much coddling, much more than I feel like there's been before in everything in life in

with adults and with children.

I mean, there's so much helicoptering of parents who helicopter their children to the point where everybody gets a participation trophy.

God forbid anyone fails at anything.

And we are so afraid of doing the wrong thing that like we are, we are basically building this community of people that are very much like, I call like this like very fragile, right?

Like we don't like, we don't even, we can't learn to be resilient.

We can't learn to fail because there's so many like safety nets to save you.

And I think that's doing a disservice.

And you know, this has been one of these topics I feel like I've been talking about a lot on other people's podcasts.

And I want to kind of talk about it a little bit on my podcast, which is

that thing, which is giving children and allowing them to fail.

I think raising children who know it's okay to not get chosen, that there are sometimes winners, there are sometimes losers, not everybody's going to win, not everybody gets a participation trophy, is giving people,

giving them like a real sense of what the world really is, as opposed to this false sense of reality.

Because in the real world, there are winners and losers, and there are people that work really hard to achieve.

And

those things are super important for your self-efficacy.

And if you don't do that, and things are just kind of caught, you're coddled, and you're not given that opportunity to figure shit out on your own, own, it's a really big disservice down the road.

And so that's really what I want to really talk about a little bit, even though I've just kind of told you what it is, but that sense of resilience and the sense of having that idea that, you know, you can, failure is just an attempt.

It's just an attempt.

It's about reframing the idea of what failure is in your head, right?

Reframing it.

These are all just reframes of how you are thinking about certain things.

It's perceptions.

Okay, but wait, I have a question for you, though, because wouldn't winning and losing also be kind of just a mentality?

Like, yeah, you can lose a basketball game, but for example, if I ever lost in a sports game, if I know that I tried my hardest, which I always did, but I was never like the most talented at anything, I never felt like I lost.

Like, I might have lost the game, but I didn't really lose.

You know what I mean?

Like, if I, if I absolutely,

you're making it, well, first of all, you at least put yourself out there.

You put yourself out there in the game.

You like were you like, you're playing the game.

If I got off the bench.

Right, If you did, right, exactly.

But the point is that you are, you, you put yourself out there, it you were like in the mix, right?

You're in the mix, and if you failed, you failed.

If you won, you won.

If you didn't, you didn't.

Now, no one loves to, like, come on, like, no one loves to lose, but we're not talking about that.

We're talking about what's happening now in today's time is on my kids' teams, like where everyone does get a participation trophy.

And it's, I think it's, it's, it's sending the wrong sign out to

these kids, like, oh, it doesn't matter if how hard you work or it doesn't matter if you actually quote unquote win because we're all winners.

That's not true.

Okay, but what are the participation trophies?

Because I always used to get like best teammate award or like most improved award.

And that, to a lot of people, is a participation trophy.

But to me, it didn't teach me that like there aren't winners or losers.

It taught me that.

okay, my strengths are in other areas and that that's okay.

And I always thought that that was really cool.

Right, because, but it's maybe because of, it comes from, I think, it comes from your home, though, right?

Like, how your parents are teaching you and raising you.

Now, I'm not, I'm not sure.

I, so, I grew up in a different time than you, right?

You're, you're a kid, and like what you just said now was, yeah, like, I never got those, you know, maybe most improved students, perhaps, or most improved player.

That's different.

I'm not talking about getting the most improved, most improved player or

most valuable player.

Those are just other awards that you get.

I'm talking about when a team or when you actually lose the season or lose

literally get a trophy.

You still get a medal.

Interesting.

And so to me, that's like, well, we didn't have that.

I mean, and I know I see it all the time with these parents who are so overly involved with their children's life, like over schedule, overdue everything.

And then I end up feeling sometimes like I got to catch myself because I then feel guilty that I'm not doing doing that.

But then I look at it again and I'm like, you know what?

Like, I think I wasn't, you know, my mother was

overprotective in different ways, but I was, I was allowed to kind of figure things out on my own.

I was, I was allowed independence to some extent.

I tried stuff, it didn't work.

Too bad, you got to try something else.

Like, I think that to me is extremely important because it also, and this is what I wanted, my point I was trying to get at, is that, you know, I think people know deep down when things are handed to them and when they earned it versus when they were just given it to them.

And I think true self-esteem and true confidence comes when you know.

that you've actually earned something because then you feel like that self-efficacy like I can and I you know I through my hard work or my perseverance I actually accomplished this thing whatever that is which gives you the

the

the confidence to actually go and achieve for the next thing.

Or overall, your overall like self-esteem is based around these ideologies.

I think self-efficacy is just in general

really important, a really important building block to building your bold.

And that's where it kind of all comes together.

Like there's like all these different principles and how you get to go from being how you can actually change and tweak your personality to be more of something else.

Not to say that someone's not good at how they are now, but if you notice that you are not standing up for yourself or not asking for what you want or not, you know, you're not, you're kind of just accepting the status quo,

then I think that A, you got to take some,

have a come to Jesus, have some self-awareness, understand where can you find some self-efficacy?

What can give you some self-esteem and some self-confidence?

And we all have strengths.

We all have weaknesses.

We've got to lean into our strengths.

And

that's where we kind of really build on that confidence.

And like I said, once you have one little win and another little win, they're just little wins that actually accumulate.

And over time, they compound over time.

And then eventually that becomes your new normal.

And then your neuroplasticity becomes very different.

It just shifts.

And that's basically my point.

I don't want to drone on the point on and on.

In fact, actually, why don't you guys, whoever is listening to this entire

conversation

solo

duo episode, leave me a comment.

Let me know what you think.

Let me know if you read that in my book, what you thought,

what you believe can help

build your own self-efficacy, what you believe about the caudal culture of what's happening now.

And if you haven't yet ordered Bigger, Bigger, Better, Boulder, what are you waiting for?

And join the Facebook group.

And yes, and join the Facebook group.

Thank you.

See, accountability partner.

Very important.

Everyone should get one.

And in the first soul episode, I'm going to leave it at this.

We talked all about building your bolder directors.

Very important to surround yourself with people who want to see you win, who want to see you succeed, and who you and each other, you could help each other, you know, elevate and grow.

Super important.

With that being said, I'm going to sign off.

Thank you, Shawnee, for being my, in my in my bold the directors and part of my accountability team.

So thank you.

You know, I pay Tova $50 every time I miss the gym.

Uh-oh, you're gonna pay her $50 tonight?

Yeah, it's at the end of the week.

Like, if I don't go three times a week, then I pay her $50 for each session that I miss.

I love it.

Yeah, that's my like,

that's makes you really want to go.

Yes, non-negotiables.

You got to build these non-negotiables that no matter what, you do them.

And we'll talk about non-negotiables on the next solo or duo episode.