Falling for Complacency

Complacency lives all around us. It permeates our communities and families.

Complacency becomes the reason and excuse for our slowness to act. It keeps us from creating solutions and serving in a higher capacity.

Our society embraces complacency like it does donuts and cookies. The sweetness of the first bite of a warm pastry delight is the reward for our efforts.

The lie our mind tells us about donuts and cookies, that the sweet treat is deserved is no different than the lies we tell ourselves that lead to complacency. We deserve to rest. We deserve to be taken care of. We deserve…

Complacency Lies

When I was younger, I competed in a contest called “Dairy Bowl.” Similar to academic challenges, this contest comprised a four-person team. The teams would compete in a head-to-head timed contest, answering questions and scoring points for correct answers.

The questions were all about farming and the dairy industry, and in some cases, they were specific to a certain breed of dairy cows.

I first started competing through my local county 4-H organization and then competed on a state-level team.

The first year I competed at the state level, an examination contest was a ‘try-out’ to create the initial pool of potential team members. I was 10, and that year, I had the highest score in my age group on the examination.

I thought I had ‘made it.’ I had the high score, and of course, I figured I would be on the team to compete that summer in Salt Lake City, Utah, at the National Convention.

But I didn't make the team. I ended up being an alternate. Why? I got complacent. I thought my work from the exam would be enough to lock in my spot on the team. I didn't study, and I didn't continue to compete in practices throughout the spring to earn my spot on the team.

It was a hard and painful lesson. It was painful because it was a first for me. I had never been in that situation before and didn't understand. I thought having the high score guaranteed me a spot. The reality is that it just got me in the door. The work I would do afterward would earn me the spot, and I just didn't do the work. I was complacent.

I didn’t do the work to earn the reward. My merits did not justify a place on a team to compete and attempt to win. As a note, the team finished second in the nation that year. Maybe had I done the work, we could have won!!

Meritocracy

Our society today has a weird relationship with meritocracy. In some places, it is alive and well: in professional sports, corporate spaces, and entrepreneurial spaces.

And yet, in so many more, complacency is alive and well.

I saw it alive and well this fall in my sons’ football program. It looked like this: Players get equal playing time regardless of effort, quality of decision-making, or impact on the goal of winning. Just to clarify, the mission of sporting matches is to win, right?

In some games, a team had the chance to win, and players were competing at a high level, and they were benched. It's not benched, where you can rotate players and have everyone engaged and contributing; benched is when the other guy goes in and makes mistakes that cost the team the chance to win. This happened over and over and over again.

The sour note for parents like myself and the players was that the coaches celebrated that the team had more wins this year than any other team in the past; their record was 2-6.

Now, let me clarify this. A team can have a 2-6 record and win! I mean the type of win they have a championship-level parade at the end of the season. It's winning because the talent on the team was multiplied and exceeded expectations.

Maximizing talent and exceeding expectations is always a win. Helping others accomplish more than they ever thought possible has and does excite me about coaching.

When we reward meritocracy, we aren't harming the development of one's talents. We are actually rewarding individuals' efforts to maximize their talents.

Parable of the Talents

In the Bible chapter Matthew, the author recounts a parable told by Jesus. The Parable of the Talents, Matthew 25:14–30, is a cautionary tale about what happens if we become complacent and fear risk.

Quite simply, it directs people to be willing to risk the talents that are bestowed upon them rather than bury them.

In another way, the greatest risk in life is not to take any risk.

My podcast guest this week, Taylor Davis, recently wrote a book, Parable for the Republic, in which he shares the lessons he has learned by maximizing the talents he’s been given.

He shared experiences from playing college football to building his financial advising book and writing his book. The lessons learned are all about resilience and pushing complacency aside.

Why Falling for Complacency Kills

Falling for complacency means accepting that our efforts and actions are meaningless. It's believing a lie that if we bury our talent, protecting ourselves from the pain of failure, safety is the best path forward.

Falling for complacency puts everything we want and care for at risk.

We become complacent when we want to coast, thinking the hill will make us faster rather than slow down.

Everything worthwhile is UPHILL!

We must do the work and commit ourselves every day to get better.

Choosing not to do the work leaves us to be carried by someone else. Their efforts cause us to be cared for and provided for; in that case, we have rendered our talents worthless.

We each have unique and special talents that, when exercised, create results that only we can make.

So, I encourage you to do the thing—make the call, jump at the chance, and let it rip. The worst that can happen is that you fail. But in reality, failing is just as good, if not better, than succeeding because when you fail, you get to learn!

And when we learn, we double our talents!

Did you catch this podcast? If not, listen to it here.