There’s nothing wrong with what losing teaches a child.

I was writing blogs for the week and came across Lynn Hill free climbing the Nose at El Capitan. It got me thinking and today we’ll cover the participation trophy syndrome. Having been a coach for ten or more years I learned to hate participation trophies. It's a piece of plastic given to losers to try and fool the player into believing somehow he’s still a winner. What guilty-minded parents don’t seem to get is that learning to win takes the development of a solid character and that takes learning what it feels like to be a loser. Winning, requires good character, developed by learning to hate to lose. Take away the losing and I’ll show you a very weak character – and I don’t care how talented they are as a player. Think of all those pro athletes with amazing talent and a terribly weak character. They’ve never developed the right character to be a good person. Take a kid with talent and put him/her on a losing team and you’ll quickly learn if your kid has leadership ability. There’s nothing wrong with what losing teaches a child. Just because your child loses doesn’t mean he or she will turn into a mass murder. Quite the opposite.

All of this translates into what is so wrong with America. We are a bunch of losers who have been told and have learned to fool ourselves into believing we are a bunch of winners just for showing up. We’ve all been handed participation trophies for so long we are starting to believe there is no end to how much debt and how many government workers our economy can withstand.

My college roommate who runs a titanium foundry in California sends me this article. His statement was that what is discussed in this article is what concerns him the most. Read the article because it’s worth the message; especially those who are raising children or who are grandparents with some input as to how children are raised.

Stephen Moore: We've Become a Nation of Takers, Not Makers - WSJ.com

So what’s wrong with learning to get it right all the time?

You tell me; look at these professions and ask yourself if less than perfect is alright when you’re on the receiving end or the service or product. Just ask yourself if we want to hand pilots a trophy for just showing up, rather than learning how to safely fly a jet.

Professions where 99.99% Success Just Isn’t Good Enough.

[BTW, some are intended to lighten the subject.]

1. Commercial Jet Pilot
2. Air Force Fighter Pilots
3. Soldiers + Marines + SWAT TEAMS + Bomb Defuser
4. Brain Surgery
5. A Rock Climber - Climbing the Nose of El Capitan
6. Air Traffic Controller + Air Traffic Controller Teacher
7. A Sky Diver
8. A maintenance worker putting rivets in the wing of a plane.
9. Pro Parachute Packer
10. The Knife Thrower Assistant aka “Target Girl” – Pro Knife Thrower – Dating a Professional Knife Thrower!
11. Atomic Bomb Pilot +
12. Atomic Bomb Pilot and Assembly Workers
13. Nuclear Power Plant Engineer
14. Tornado Chaser
15. Window Washer for Skyscrapers
16. Farmer Working Around an unshielded PTO Shaft
17. Boat Captain on the Bering Sea
18. Bomb Assembly Worker
19. Ski Area Avalanche Preventer + Predicting An Avalanche
20. Construction worker working with no fall protection
21. Ditch digger with no confined space protection
22. Helicopter Pilot
23. Volcano researcher trying to predict an eruption
24. The Criminal Defense Lawyer defending a person charged with capital murder.
25. Expert witness whose testimony is being used to convict in a death penalty case.
26. A politician being asked to pardon a person on death row who did not commit the crime they were convicted of doing.
27. Prescription Drug Manufacturer or Quality Control Inspector
28. Brake Installer and Repairman
29. Surgeons
30. The jurors sitting on a death penalty case