Habits and Hustle - Episode 202: Are Participation Trophies Ruining Society?

Episode Date: December 31, 2022

In this week’s solo episode, Jennifer discusses the importance of self-efficacy, the benefit of failure and why coddle culture is harming our children.  Find out Jen’s secret to getting anything you want out of life Join Jen’s new Facebook group! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Did you learn something from tuning in today? Please pay it forward and write us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts.  📧If you have feedback for the show, please email [e-mail]  📙Get yourself a copy of Jennifer Cohen’s newest book from Habit Nest, Badass Body Goals Journal.  ℹ️Habits & Hustle Website - http://habitshustle.com 📚Habit Nest Website - https://habitnest.com/  📱Follow Jennifer - Instagram - https://instagram.com/therealjencohen - Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/therealjencohen - Twitter - https://twitter.com/therealjencohen - Jennifer’s Website - https://jennifercohen.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Okay, this is now solo episode this is now solo episode number two and I have my foil yet again with me, Johnny, who makes it so much more not just comfortable, but fun to do it with you. I love that. And you know what also she's become like an accountability partner with this because sometimes when you're left 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. She'll help a photograph you right now. Shawnee, yeah, she's just she's just uh screwing with me right now. But anyway, I'm really not. She looks looks great guys you can watch the video So you can actually get past that I just took a good I took a foot I listen to her this is not what the solo episodes supposed to be about okay It's only but thank you and I listen I can I always I always invite and appreciate compliments So thank you, but I was gonna say that in life sometimes we need accountability partners or people who keep us accountable

To doing things or else we can go straight and or I 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 now, go now, and implement those habits and rituals early. There's no such thing as waiting until that day, that day, 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 at. That was the best Adoreed 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, and, yeah, since she is about to be eight, thank you, Sydney. So the other thing is, even though we 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, well, I don't know how, 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 and I really hope that there's still something. I know they could have actually, if, listen, if I was them, I would have actually like, you know, maybe, you wouldn't have come to the next one. Yeah, I'm just babbling, I'm just babbling and babbling. But I want to save 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, say it all the time, like anything else.

Karate, Spanish, Shawnee name, another skill. Turgitsu, art, weightlifting, cooking. All of those. Makeup. Makeup, which I still, I mean, speaking, public speaking. Yeah, it's a good one to do. But the bottom line is boldness is just a skill like anything else.

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

You know, you've got to work out 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 rest on those laurels because it's always a work in progress, right? Even with me, 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. This episode is brought to you by GlobalX ETFs. Start your investing journey by exploring exchange-traded funds. Exchange-traded funds, more commonly known as ETFs. Start your investing journey by exploring exchange-traded funds. Exchange-traded funds, more commonly known as ETFs, create baskets of stocks, bonds, and other assets that you can buy in a single trade. At GlobalX, they specialize in ETFs that track emerging technologies, like the rise of electric vehicles, as well as strategies aimed to potentially generate income, and much more. To discover how you can add ETFs

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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. That's, as you see yourself, you know, it's exceeding or finishing, I should say finishing something,

it gives you the confidence and really the self-esteem to kind of go to the next thing. So let's talk about self-efficacy. Yeah, let's. Okay. I do think it's really important. I said 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, always get it done. What's about figuring it out? The one thing that I think is really important is that when we're at a young age where 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, 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 we are basically building this community of people that are very much like, I call this very fragile. We can't learn to be resilient, we can't learn to fail because there's so many 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 gonna win, not everybody gets a participation trophy,

is giving people, giving them 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 yourself, efficacy. And if you don't do that, and things are just kind of your coddled, and you're not given that opportunity to figure

shit out on your 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. 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 the most talented at anything, I never felt like I lost. I might have lost the game, but I didn't really lose. You know what I mean?

Like, if I did well... If the right thing you're making in it, well, first of all, you at least put yourself out there... You put yourself out there in the game. You were like, you're playing the game. If I got off the bench. Right, if you did. Right, exactly.

But the point is that you put yourself out there, you were 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, 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 sending the wrong sign out to, to these kids, like, oh, it doesn't matter how hard you work, or it doesn't matter if you actually quote unquote win because we're all winners. That's not true. OK, but what are the participation trophies? Because I always used to get best teammate award or most improved award.

And that, until a lot of people, it's a participation trophy. But to me, it didn't teach me that there aren't winners or losers or taught me that my strengths are in other areas. And that's OK. And I always thought that was really cool. Right. But it's maybe because of, it comes from, I think, it comes from your home, though,

right, like how your parents are teaching when raising you. Now I'm not sure, so I grew up in a different time than you, right, you're a kid. And like what you just said now is, 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, 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, you still get like 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, overdo everything. And then I end up feeling sometimes, like I gotta catch myself because I then feel guilty that I'm not doing that. But then I look at it again and I'm like, you know what, I think, I wasn't, you know, my mother was overprotective in different ways,

but I was allowed to kind of figure things out on my own. 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-ethicacy, like I can. And I, you know, through my hard work or my perseverance, I actually accomplished this thing, whatever that is, which gives you 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. 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're kind of just accepting the status quo, then I think that, A, you're going to 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 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, there's 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 wanna drone on the point, on and on. In fact, actually, why don't you guys, whoever is listening to this entire conversation, solo 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 a bigger, better bolder, what are you waiting for? And join the Facebook group.

And oh yes, and join the Facebook group. Thank you. See, accountability partner. Very important. Everyone should get one. And then 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, who want to see you, succeed,

and who you and each other, you could help each other, elevate and grow. Super important. With that being said, I'm going to sign off. Thank you, Shawnee, for being my bolded directors and part of my accountability team, so thank you. Well, this summer, go to the movies, projected on the side of a mountain.

Discover a new favorite restaurant, your campsite. Find yourself when you lose your signal. Discover a new playlist, Mother Nature. Make your summer special at the end of the week. 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 be a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like a little bit more like's at the end of the week. If I don't go three times a week, then I pay a $50 for each session that I missed.

I love it. Yeah, that's my like. That makes you really want to go. Yes, non-negotiable. You've 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.

This episode is brought to you by the YAP Media Podcast Network. I'm Halataha, CEO of the award-winning digital media empire YAP Media, and host of YAP Young & Profiting Podcast, a number one entrepreneurship and self-improvement podcast where you can listen, learn, and profit. On Young & Profiting Podcast, I interview the brightest minds in the world, and I turn their wisdom into actionable advice that you can use in your daily life. Each week we dive into a new topic like the art of side hustles, how to level up your influence and persuasion and goal setting.

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