andy ellwood

Sometime between when I was a kid and now, the idea of “Participation Trophies” came about. If your kid shows up for soccer practice, games, and you bring oranges slices and juice boxes for halftime snacks, your kid is going to get a trophy at the end of the year pizza party. Whether they team ever won a single game.
Today’s news that President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize is culmination of the “self esteem gospel” that has been perpetrated through our society and education system for the past 20 years. As long as you feel good about yourself and the effort that you made, don’t worry about real tangible results. If you had a good idea and failed, don’t worry, it’s okay. If you built your company on a bad business model, but were lucky enough to get “too big to fail,” the nanny state government is there to bail you out. If you were just tired of the doom and gloom of the financial crisis, don’t worry, even without real changes in the fundamentals, a plumitting U. S. Dollar, and unemployment of almost 10%, the stock market will come back by more than 40% some you can feel better about yourself.
As someone who has never suffered from self esteem issues, I have been guilty of efforts without results on multiple occasions. I have been proud of making a list of goals, but not achieving them. I have smiled when thinking about my dreams, but not taking decisive action to achieve them.
I have also learned that nothing of real value comes without extreme dilligence, real results, and excruciating hard work.
Today I learned that the Nobel Peace Prize is no longer something of real value.Tweet