Episode 186: Our Obsession with Winning (and how to re-think)
/“Suddenly it was...this is not about having fun, now you need to be a serious athlete. We are here to win. That’s all that matters. ”
Cath with her silver medal at the Athens Olympics
The culture of winning pervades our lives. From sport to the classroom to the workplace, we're supposed to 'kill it' or congratulated for 'crushing it.' But all that crushing can take a toll on the psyche, as Olympic athlete Cath Bishop can attest.
cath bishop
Cath spent years training in her sport, rowing, and competed in three Olympic Games. When she left sport she thought she'd left the obsession with winning behind. Instead she found it was pretty much everywhere.
In this episode we discuss what winning actually means if you want to achieve long-term success (which looks a lot different than what most people think of as 'success.') We talk about the gendered language around winning, and the young female sports stars who are rejecting the winning narrative.
Cath is the author of The Long Win: the search for a better way to succeed.
You can also read a transcript of the show.
And per my teaser in the show, check out the Ask A Harvard Professor podcast - I’d love to have Prof. Claudia Goldin on this show. She was their guest in this episode.