#25: Stress, Anxiety and Learning. Finding a Path to Competence & Success

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Grades can turn school into a daily stress test for both kids and parents. We take a different angle: real education is not about stuffing a head with facts or performing on one big exam, it is about building competence that shows up in life. We talk about why memorising for tests is often the least important reason to learn, and how that belief quietly fuels anxiety, power struggles, and the feeling that your child is being measured instead of supported.

We break down a practical, parent-friendly approach to de-stressing education: start by validating what your child already knows, devalue harsh labels and past evaluations, and then build forward with simple steps. We also dig into how reading skills unlock self-directed learning, because once a child can read well, they can chase real interests through books, practice, and mentors instead of waiting for a school system to “deliver” motivation.

To make it tangible, we share stories from high performance that mirror what healthy learning looks like: Alysa Liu returning to figure skating for the love of the art, and wrestling legend Cale Sanderson treating competition like a game while staying humble and focused on improvement. The takeaway is clear: when kids are allowed to choose, explore, and adjust their goals, enjoyment and competence grow together.

If you want less school anxiety and more confidence at home, listen now, then subscribe, share the episode with a parent who needs it, and leave a review. What would change for your child if competence mattered more than grades?

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Transcript

Welcome And The Promise Of Tools

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode. Today we're going to be going over de-stressing you and your child regarding the subject of education and how we approach this and give you some very practical, immediately usable tools that you can take away from this episode. So stay tuned till the end. Okay, Mike, let's start people out on how this works in our approach to de stressing education.

Competence That Transfers To Life

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Sure. You know, we talk all the time about mastering things and becoming super proficient and all that sort of thing. And that can be mistaken for believing that it's it's so so dire and important to know all this stuff. It's like, well, no, it's not that important to know a bunch of stuff. A bunch of information. Okay. And usually most of the schools in America are built around the concept of filling filling the kids' heads with a bunch of information and seeing if they can remember it on test day. Right. Okay. And if they know a bunch of stuff, if they and they can spit it back out on a piece of paper, then they get A's and grades, and it's like, yay, and okay. That's the least important reason to learn something is because it's going to be tested upon. Okay. That's the least important reason. Is there any genuine interest on the part of the child in learning about this subject? And there's a lot of judgment that enters in here of like the child, if you really question the child, they might, they might, there's no reason to go to school at all. That might be true. That might be true if if the school's not teaching anything that's useful, okay, maybe they would be better off being homeschooled or pursuing education another way, get into another school or just hiring a a tutor to help them out with what they need. You know, putting that kid into the family business or something and or plugging them into the local Home Depot so they can learn how to drive a forklift at age 14, if that's legal, I'm not sure. Right. I think I I I wish I would have done more of that sort of thing when I was when I was that that age, you know, learning how to drive a forklift, learning how to handle machinery and things that I, you know, I was around but not actually learning about. So there's different levels of necessity to know things. And it comes from evaluating what value is it gonna be to the child and it and and the grown child, the future. Are they gonna use this information? So if they're learning something that they're gonna do, then it becomes quite important to become a master at that thing. You want to be really, really good, very skilled at driving a car. That's important, okay? And it doesn't matter what your exam rate was on the test, right? The only percentage that matters is your percentage of accident-free days and years, right? That's the real test. I've heard it, I've heard it said recently that that life is an IQ test, right? It's like, well, how did you how well did you learn how to control the things in your environment that you need to be in control of? And how well did you learn how to get along with other people who are maybe positioned above you or aside you or below you in some organization or in school or any organization? How well can you get along and create team activity out of controlling whatever it is you guys are supposed to be in control of, whether that's the stage, right, a performance that's going on, or or if it's an athletic playing field or or a bunch of equipment that you're in charge of, or an office, whatever it is, right? That's where it counts. That's when it becomes important to really, really master things.

Validate Strengths And Cancel False Ideas

SPEAKER_00 4:25

I love that because I do feel and I've seen so many times that the good grade person who gets good scores on their tests at school, that doesn't often translate into the person who does the best in life. And I totally feel that what's missed is that competence factor and taking the ability you get from learning out into life and doing something effective with it. So I think that makes so much sense. Going over that, how how can this be approached so that it is de-stressing to the parent and the child as they're navigating school and the demand for good grades and how important there's so much importance put on that regarding colleges and all of it. So what's what's your approach? What do you think people should do regarding that?

SPEAKER_01 5:19

Well, I've always found it most effective to first of all validate the child for what they do know or the student. You know, I get students entering into a correctional situation at age 13, 15, 18, and older. And instead of stressing on and pointing out all the faults or what they don't know, you start from what they do know, okay, and work it forward from there and and devalue any evaluation that's been given to the child by the school, by teachers, by their friends, by who whomever, as to, you know, any idea that they're that they're dumb or they're lacking or there's something wrong with them because they don't know blah or they haven't mastered blah. It's not true. None of that stuff's true. If they want to learn about it, if they have even just the idea that, well, they'd like to learn how to play football because it looks fun and they think they might like it. Well, okay. They've done some observation. Okay, that's the first step of our formula, our look, learn, practice thing. They've looked, they've watched, they've seen some kids having fun. They're just not very good at holding that football. Okay. Well, fine. Let's have them kick it around for a while. Let's let's back it up to something, you know, and and there there must be certain steps that they can take, right? Go find some books on the subject. Let's get a bunch of books. Which is why, of course, we always stress reading, and I say stress, meaning like prioritize reading skills as being important because once they're at a place where they can read and pursue reading books about things that they're interested in, they can they can follow their own interests and continue to learn more. And so and let's get back to your original question. You know, I know I can just go go go off and talk talk about the importance of reading, for instance, all of a sudden, but let's get back to your original question. Make sure we're on topic.

SPEAKER_00 7:13

Yeah, so we're trying to de-stress the whole subject of education. You know, I scroll through social media on occasion and I'll see these ads, probably because I'm in the education, you know, world. I'll see these ads about how to get your child into XYZ college or make sure they're successful. And when you go through it, it's a lot about grades. It's a lot about how to manipulate the system and how to take the right classes and get the right marks and all of that. So there's all this stress put on it. But we're proposing a different approach to de-stress people and put the accent on competence that is translated in ability in life. So I just wanted to see how do parents start this process? How do you go about that?

SPEAKER_01 8:03

Okay. The first thing to do is we start from that point where I mentioned, you know, validating what the person does know. Okay. And let's build, let's build that up. Let's devalue, let's just, let's just cancel. I love, I love canceling things, canceling false information, right? You go, that's just canceled. This idea that you need to memorize all this information because there's a big important test coming up, that's canceled. Just cancel it. It doesn't, there's no read that's the word, that's the worst possible reason to to learn something is because there's going to be a test on it. Oh, it's very important. No, it's not important. So let's just cancel that whole thing. Okay. And in terms of like going to college, I mean, if that's the path that has been chosen by the child and they want to learn engineering, okay. Well, okay, let's not even put it off until college. Like, why why can't they start learning engineering right now? They can if the if the correct approach is taken, which is not to memorize a bunch of information and get good grades so that they can then go into college. No, let's find some books about how to make bottle rockets or something or so shoot some rockets off. I know one high school teacher that routinely teaches his high school and younger kids to to shoot rockets, real rockets. You know, okay, good. Let's take it from there and move it on up the line. Okay, if that's the way they want to go. If they have other interests, other pursuits, they want to become a professional football player. Well, okay, small percentage of people can make that grade. Okay. We know this, they can they can get better. They can always improve from where they are. And how important is it, you know, that they that they become a professional football player? Well, let them decide as they move along through life how important it is. Let's just keep moving them in the direction of competence, continuing to learn all the time, and they'll sort out what's important to them and what's not. But to hold it over them and say, well, you you said you wanted that gold medal, so by God, therefore, you you're gonna, we're now gonna control you to do all that. It's like, well, wait a minute. He changed his mind. He joined the wrestling team because his brother convinced him he should, and he hated it. People are like, you know, beating him up all the time. So it's like, well, okay, maybe that child needs to be reoriented to the subject of wrestling and how much fun it can be. It can be fun if it's taken on the right approach, right? But yeah, but maybe that kid would rather pursue becoming a world-class actor or a world-class something else, okay, after they tried wrestling or whatever, right? So let them decide and and and and help them out, help them to learn from their mistakes, move forward, and let and put them in charge of them navigating their own life. That's what's most important.

Alysa Liu And Learning For Love

SPEAKER_00 10:55

Yeah, absolutely. And as you were talking, you know, I brought this up in a couple episodes now, since the Olympics just ended, the Winter Olympics of 2026. And it struck me as I was going through some of the stories, something that you just made more clear to me as you were explaining how to de-stress a child's path through allowing them to gain confidence and do what they wanted to, right? So the young woman, I'm not sure if I'm gonna pronounce her name right, Alyssa Liu. She was the gold medal winner for figure skating. I believe it's a solo competition. And she's American, and I read a little bit about her story and how this evolved. So she was a young skater who did very well in her teens, and I believe she's 20 now, so still very young in our estimate, but you know, apparently a little older for figure skating world. But apparently a couple years ago, she reached out to her coach and said that she wanted to get back into figure skating and compete. But her approach just struck me because she deliberately said that she wasn't getting back into it to win the gold or be competitive or anything else, but because she loved the art of figure skating. And this coach obviously was, you know, I think that's what he does. He creates, you know, stars in the figure skating world. She was very upfront with him and said, I am not going to be just following the rules on figure skating. I'm going to create my own routines, choose her own music. Uh, there was a whole list of things she was gonna do. Some of it I didn't understand. It was definitely figure skating. I need to go look up those words, but of course you could help me with that afterwards. But the point was that her approach was very, I'm doing this because I love it, because I want to become competent at it, not because I have to get a grade, which is the equivalent in that world of winning a you know a medal or something, right? Or I have to get to it to the Olympics and make all of this happen. It was this enjoyment of the art and her ability to be so competent at it. And if you watch her in this last Olympics, just a week or two ago now, her performance is like a young child playing, right? Everyone else is very serious and amazing and dramatic and all of this, but the way it just moved and she was very, very happy as she was doing it, and you could just tell that she was enjoying the heck out of it. And uh, it just aligns with everything you just said, as like that's how at least one person got to that level. And like you said, not everybody gets to that level for whatever reason, but even if she hadn't got to that level, she would have really enjoyed what she was doing, and it evolved in a way that was very organic for her, and she was in control of it, which I think was super important. So I just wanted to share that to complement an example of what you just said. It just came to me.

SPEAKER_01 14:02

Absolutely, very fitting example. And uh I don't know if we have time for a similar example or not in this episode, but you that now just reminded me of something that I'm quite familiar with, which is there's a a coach at Penn State University. His name is Cale Sanderson, Kale being spelled C-A-E-L, right? Not like the lettuce or whatever. So Cale Sanderson has created an empire out of wrestling at Penn State University. They've won, I mean, they're they're approaching records of of just epic proportion in terms of the power and strength of maintaining superiority over other teams across the nation, and really have inspired other other teams to to change their approach. And I I I've seen this, I've watched it evolve over many years. And uh, I remember when Kale was, I think it was when he was a sophomore, I believe, in and in college, and we were watching either live, I'd have to go back and really inspect which ones, which NCAA championships Terry and I traveled to, my wife and I traveled to go see live and which ones we watched televised. Uh, we were definitely there for for Kale's fourth year of of college where he finished undefeated, undefeated first first person ever, and and the only person ever. Like he's the only person in college wrestling to have gone four years undefeated. There's been people who won four championships, but you can have losses through the year and so forth and still become the champion at the end of the year. Now, four years undefeated. It's unbelievable. And he's such a, oh, let's go back to the sophomore year thing. There was, there was, I remember the announcers who are saying, okay, there's another two points for Kale. He's back on on top. You see, he's he's in the top position. He just took this guy down to the mat and so forth. And and then even the reporter was struck. He says, Wait a minute, what he says, what is what is he doing? He's got a smile on his face. Nobody wrestles with a smile on your face, right? And I was commenting on this fact to my brother Chris, who was wrestling at the time and is now a head high school wrestling coach himself. I mentioned this thing to to Chris, and his reply back was wrestling is something different to that guy. And Cale's been very vocal about exactly what it is that's he sees differently, is as he approaches it as a game. He just says it's a game. And just like you mentioned, that girl who was focused in on the art of figure skating, okay, the level of playing a game, when you're really at the level of playing the game, not just being a participant or a piece in the game, but you're playing the game from a high altitude, that's so much higher than most anybody else is doing because they're down in the range of like, yeah, following protocols or rules or destroying your opponent, who's would be whether it's football or wrestling or anything else, boxing, you're certainly right. You're certainly. But even the best boxers, the best, best, best ones had a lot of camaraderie and compassion for their competitors. It's a level of playing the game and participating that is like art. It is a performance. You are, and that that's sort of my background. I really didn't take any drama classes or have much familiarity with doing any acting or stage anything, but I did get out and play sports, wrestling being the one I took the furthest. And it is a performance. You are you are demonstrating your skill and ability. And the people who are operating at that level of like really playing the game, like meaning that they're they're all in, they're committed, they're they're studying it like a student. Okay. They, yeah, they're they they're the ones who win. They're the ones who succeed. And there's a note there, too, that although they might be winning more than other people, they'll tell you it's not just about the winning, because any loss can be learned from. It can be a learning lesson. And yeah, I remember hearing Cale come uh come off of a wrestling mat at the end of a tournament where he beat all of his components resoundingly, and he would be getting interviewed. The microphone goes in front of his face, and uh, Cale, you know, I don't know what was exactly being said, but uh you pretty much destroyed all your opponents. How do you feel about your tournament? And he was like, Well, he's like, Well, in my second match, I did give up a takedown, so I have a lot of work to do, right? Very humble, very just like he just like it. So that's that's a student, see? That's being a student of the sport. That's your studying and you're mastering and you're learning and you're and but it, you know, was it was it catastrophically horrible that he was taken down? No, it wasn't some emotional situation, right? And so he was able to just turn it into a learning experience, period. And that can be translated into any field is just what do I need, what do I know? What do I need to know? And jockey those two things back and forth. Let's validate what I do know, let's find out what I don't know, let's keep moving it forward and take pride in the accomplishments in a certain direction. Not that you you uh you don't have to be the best of the best of the best today. You can always strive to be better or to be the best in some area. And then with the children, and of course we're talking to these parents, let them decide what they want to pursue and become the best at. What do they enjoy the most? You see? And let's take that enjoyment and keep jockeying up enjoyment, competence, more competence, more enjoyment, more enjoyment, more competence. They suddenly shift gears, maybe because they maybe they become of age or whatever, you know, as a teenager does or preteen does, and suddenly they're they're they they they change their priorities. Well, if it's a natural, organic, self-determined choice, then it's gonna go well. If it's if it's uh they're abandoning this other thing because they failed to learn what they really wanted to learn, well, they're always gonna have those struggles. So let's figure it out what which one is it, right?

Bringing It Home For Parents

SPEAKER_00 20:01

Awesome. That makes so much sense and really brings it full circle. So, you know, how do you apply these concepts to your child and help them move in the right direction? So it makes so much sense. So, parents, that's your takeaway on how to de-stress education and just living life for your child and help them move in the right direction. So, thank you everybody for listening and we'll see you in the next episode.