Competition is Killing Us: How to Shift Into Celebration

Be. Play. Love.

Going from an average pickleball player to a champion should be a moment of celebration, but sometimes winning unleashes questions, doubts and stories we didn’t even know were there.

“Am I a threat now that I’m doing well?” “Do people hate me now?” “Maybe I should have lost to make things easier.” Competition often activates parts of ourselves that aren’t nice, because it’s not how we should relate to one another.

Our world runs on win-lose, up-down dynamics that hamper our collective creativity and progress. Survival of the fittest is antithetical to how nature works. That dynamic makes us foes instead of collaborators, opponents instead of co-creators of something great. It’s clear that our culture is crying out for a new paradigm.

What if we could do away with all the toxicity around competition altogether? How can we collectively create something new?

In today’s episode, we dig into a recent epiphany about competition, and why the idea of winning might be hurting us more than it helps.

Three Things You’ll Learn In This Episode

- The success of the collective beats the triumph of the individual How can we release this idea that we lose together and win alone?

- Mimicking natureNature doesn’t focus on who’s the big kahuna, it focuses on who has the best solution for the collective. How do we shift into that energy?

- Stop competing, start collaborating Can sport still be fun if we’re not locked in tense and bitter rivalries?