I don’t like participation trophies for kids. Not a fan. Never have been. I can’t stand the trend of giving awards just for showing up and giving the same medal for finishing eighth as first. That’s not how I’m wired and that’s not how the world works. Teaching kids otherwise does them no favors.
But for midlife? I’m going to say something you won’t expect:
The participation trophy IS what winning looks like.
Winning in midlife is not about finishing first or finishing fastest. It is about showing up. It is about still being in the arena while so many of our peers have dropped out. Being part of something. Not burning out, not blowing ourselves up, but being consistent and disciplined – and part of that discipline includes holding yourself accountable to slowing down when everything in you wants to speed up. Rhythm. Pace. Cadence. Sustainability. Fitness. That’s what matters now, not a podium, not being performative, and not for optics.
By definition, if you’re injured or you can’t perform when called upon, you’re unfit. Nobody cares how fast you went or how heavy you lifted, the same as nobody cares anymore where you went to college or what your GPA was twenty or thirty years ago. They only care if you’re capable. Think long and hard about this.
Winning, at this stage of life, is being able to participate in whatever you want.
This is why I gravitate towards the “real guys”, not the athletes. And while I’m inspired by the true athletes, former pros and all the guys my age and above who still compete, I don’t aspire to that anymore. I aspire to being capable of doing whatever I want, not killing myself to be the best at one physical thing.
The guys I really look to are not just relatable, they’re also credible and aspirational, because I can see myself in them. I can see myself in somebody like Jesse Itzler, who flat-out says, “I have never won a race in my life. Always at the back of the pack. Run seven minutes, walk three minutes.” But you know what’s admirable? He finishes. He says he’s going to do something, and he goes out there and gets it done. That’s perfectly imperfect to me. That’s something I feel I can also do along with a family, businesses, personal and professional obligations, responsibilities and limitations. And the truth is, I’m not willing to do what it takes to win. Nor do I want to. Because I don’t see winning as the win anymore. The cost is too high. It comes at too high a price to the rest of my life.
Winning to me now looks like total life wellness. It looks like being a generalist, not a specialist. It looks like participating.
Here’s a personal example:
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That first year of 29029 (and event where you hike the height of Mount Everest over 36 hours on one mountain), I went out like a bat out of hell to win. I thought winning was finishing first, getting up and down that mountain as fast as possible. I was wrong. It was a miserable experience, not just physically, but mentally, emotionally, spiritually, even financially. I spent all this money to go do this event, and I had no fucking fun. I didn’t meet anybody. I didn’t enjoy myself. I didn’t feel a part of anything.
I got to the awards dinner that night and watched the wrap-up video, and I don’t even think I was at the same event as half those people. They were laughing. They have other people they met on the mountain, sitting at a table with them. They’re hugging, cheering, they look good. I looked like shit. Eyes swollen shut from ten thousand milligrams of electrolytes and salt, digestive problems from every horrible food I put in my body just to keep going, the lack of sleep.
I vowed to never do that again. And every year since, I’ve made it a point to meet as many people as I can and go as slowly as I can. Connect. Talk. Belong. Show up healthy. Leave healthy. I still go hard (at least harder than most guys my age). I just want to say yes to participating whenever somebody, anybody, asks me to do something. Can I pat myself on the back? Sure, I got on the podium in 2021 at HYROX. So what? It’s 2026.
If you asked me to go do it again, I could. I wouldn’t place anywhere near the top. But I’d have a good time, and I’d get it done. I won’t be first, I won’t be last. Especially at my age, when every year you see fewer and fewer people in the arena. Staying in the game.
I want to be able to DO. I want to have three excellent adventures with our incredible group of guys: paddleboard, hike, train in the pool. But quite frankly, I also don’t want to bury myself. I don’t want to need a week to recover from something I put myself through.
In September, I’ll do 29029 for the fifth time, taking fifteen guys with me to Sun Valley, Idaho. I want every one of us to finish. My metric of success: staying with anybody who needs support, and helping them finish. Two weeks later, I’ll be co-leading a 14er at Grays Peak, Colorado, with my buddy Sterling Hawkins, for another fifteen people. The goal: get everyone to the top. Don’t get hurt. Two weeks after that, I signed up for a two-mile open water swim in Lake Conroe, Texas, for Swim Across America, raising money for cancer research. My goal: finish. Don’t drown. I don’t care if I have to do the backstroke, breaststroke, or side stroke. And that’s just September.
The point is, there’s always somebody out there doing more, performing at a higher level, with a different definition of winning. But there are also a lot more people out there doing nothing, not getting off their ass, not participating, afraid to even get in the game, or get back in the game, or do something, because they’re worried about how they’ll do, or won’t do.
That’s why I’m planting my flag that participation, in itself, is the win.
I can tell you, at any and every event I’ve ever gone to, the person who wins is not the one who gets cheered the loudest. That person is the last one to cross the finish line. That’s the real winner, the person who knew they weren’t going to win, who didn’t think they could finish, who hadn’t been out there before. And they got up. They laced up. They got in the game. And they did something they didn’t think they could do.
Everybody loves that person. How can you not?
Be that guy.
In Health,
Greg Scheinman
Founder, Midlife Male
Husband. Father. Entrepreneur. Coach.
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