Trash the Trophies: How to Win Without Losing Your Soul

TRASH THE TROPHIES

By: Chasta Hamilton

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INTRODUCTION

The bass was booming on a Saturday night around 11:00 p.m. as Taylor Swift’s “Trouble (Goat Remix)” blared on the numerous video screens that surrounded the stage. I was working my seventeenth or eighteenth hour of the “weekend” at a dance competition with students from my studio. My glasses were on because I had pink eye in both eyes. Exhausted and unhealthy, I was a walking representation of physical and emotional burnout. As a naturally enthusiastic person, I felt more like a shell of myself, a walking robot moving through the motions, prepared to address concerns and facilitate negativity. With tears in my eyes and a knot in my throat, I chose to sit off to the side to quietly reflect on the mess in front of me.

As expected, one of my dancers was called to the stage as a mega-winner of the weekend. I sat in my seat cringing because I knew I was going to be invited on stage to share in the victory. When it happened, I walked up, prepared to fulfill my obligation. I stood on the stage of the Durham Performing Arts Center, a 2,712-seat venue, feeling hollow and defeated. Lights were flashing and songs were blaring. Sensory overload is an understatement.

“Hug your dancer!” the emcee enthusiastically said as though this moment should represent everything I ever wanted for my entire life.

I exchanged gestures, but it was meaningless. Just like the entire competitive dance industry.

If you’ve spent forty-hour weekends at regional events or your ten-day summer family vacations at Nationals, you’ve probably had similar fleeting thoughts. When we convene for these events, we lose our weekday identities of business owner, husband/wife, lawyer, chef, room parent, doctor, and honor-roll student and instead transform into Dance Mom, Dance Dad, Dance Competitor, and Number-One Dance Teacher. We sacrifice healthy meals, sleep, and our sanity to keep the ruse going. The aggressive desire to win is all-consuming.

Even if a parent suggests they’re simply participating “for the fun of it,” it is probably through a forced, fake smile that is slapped on as a response to societal standards versus genuinely authentic feelings.

When we are positioned in our “Dance Competition Roles,”

• We root for some children to win and some children to lose.

• We experience every range of emotions imaginable.

• We feel super confused about consistency in scoring.

• We make friends, lose friends, and discover our real friends.

And we wonder, why are we doing it?

I lived this full range of emotions alongside my clients in nearly every city across North Carolina, up and down the East Coast, and in randomly scattered locations like New Orleans and Anaheim.

Our happiest moments were always tied to the joy of perfor mance without awards. One time, one of our little guys was tearing up the Cha-Cha Slide on stage prior to an awards ceremony. Our dance families were in fits of joyful tears and jubilant laughter over this display of pure, organic per formance. It represented everything dance can and should be!

A few minutes later, an awards ceremony started and, because this child didn’t achieve a top-ranking trophy, the mood immediately darkened with accusations of being “robbed.” It completely erased the joy and community we had experienced. In a quick second, we went from a collective ensemble to a hungry pack of wolves. And the catalyst of the response: a trophy.

What’s the price of this type of behavior and environment?

• An immense amount of time.

• An exceptional amount of money.

• Emotional and physical exhaustion.

• The false sense of validation of approval from an indus try that has no regulation and hypocritical standards.

As invoices containing alarming amounts of entry fees due crossed my desk, I knew I would never pay this amount of money for my child to participate in something so superfi cial. If you can’t fully support something, how do you sell it? I longed for the program to be something I could celebrate and wholeheartedly support.

There had to be an alternative option for heightened dance education that was truer to my purpose. Success and victory had to be achievable in a more meaningful way.

That feeling is the motivator that prompted me to make a major change.

Late one night, under a blanket of stars and a cloak of humidity, I dragged trash bag after trash bag to a discreet dumpster. I wanted to be somewhere else far, far away, but my mind was focused on precariously guarding the careful disposal of each bag. I feared the strange objects would pierce the sides and be visible to the public. It’d be fitting; the past few years had certainly been thorny. Though part of me was longing for the simplicity of days gone by or some (really, any) sense of normalcy, I knew it was time to move forward and embrace a new era.

I was trashing the trophies and leaving the competitive dance industry behind.

My decision wasn’t easy. It was two years in the making as I quietly watched the competitive dance industry wreak havoc on my dance studio business and my legacy. I faced pushback from clients and staff and wrestled with my inner conflict as well.

The trophies didn’t represent success or victory. It was quite the opposite. They represented hurt, stress, toxicity, and anxiety. They marked a period in my career where my dream was tainted, my legacy compromised, and my future unknown.

Self-care wasn’t on my radar. Books about being a badass didn’t feel encouraging, and day after day, I felt like I was drowning in a sea of negativity. There were secrets, betrayals, and enough drama to fill an entire soap opera series.

As the intensity continued to escalate, there was less listening and more directional confrontation: “You should do this! You should do that!” The noise was deafening, and I reached a breaking point that forced me to listen to my voice.

When I made the decision to trash the trophies and leave the competitive dance industry, I made it out of the need for survival, but I knew that if I went all in, I could do something that hadn’t been done. I could PIVOT, I could DISRUPT, I could REMODEL not only the dance industry, but the entire perspective of the children’s extracurricular market.

With a heightened focus on social marketing, return on investment, community and culture, and all-in impact, the world was craving connection, and I craved change. I was being pushed to the edge, but in this horrible chal lenge, there was the greatest opportunity of my professional career.

We all know the gut feeling, the instinct, that’s so easy to ignore but sickening to acknowledge. It can be professional, personal, or societal. Take my story and know that while my experience may not be the same as yours, we ALL have the power to shift the narrative when our lives and our dreams feel derailed. Action is what matters the most!

The twelve chapters of this book are centered around action-affiliated steps that will allow you to take control of your story in a successful and victorious way that is free of meaningless insignia.

1. Start a Fire. If you could do one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be? Why? How do you identify and eliminate distractions that contradict your passion and purpose?

2. Ride the Roller Coaster. Is the ride worth it, or are you bending your standards to conform?

3. Stay Alert. When something feels off, inventory it and activate a plan.

4. Make the Moves. Use your voice for things that matter, even when it’s inconvenient.

5. Prepare for the Storm. Emotionally prepare for the tran sition, and strategically navigate and communicate the change.

6. Own Your Narrative. Build the buy-in through identifying (and owning) the meaning and messaging behind everything you do.

7. Level Up. Use your rebranding to correct missteps and exceed expectations.

8. Change the Game. Are you a complainer or a game changer?

9. Be Bold. Know the traits of bold leaders, and rock them.

10. Show Your Strength. Follow these tactics for tenacity and the importance of forward motion.

11. Pave Your Path. Navigate the noise with your words and actions, paving a path that represents you.

12. Let’s Launch It! It’s go time!

While the examples in this book are specific to our experience exiting the competitive dance industry and creating a new program and model that are aligned with our purpose and mission, the themes are universally applicable to any person’s professional and personal fulfillment. What holds you back? What weighs you down? What is keeping you from being the best, most fulfilled version of yourself?

I am a forward-moving person. I do not like to look back, because it slows down progress. This book was hard to write. I had to revisit a lot of unpleasant memories and mistakes I made as a leader. With every passing year, I gain more clar ity in the vision and realize the power in the choice I made. While your industry or circumstance may not be the same as mine, your power to cultivate change is real.

You see, Trash the Trophies doesn’t solely symbolize the need to strip away labels that are counterintuitive to our personal and professional success. It’s a calling to alleviate any distraction or relationship that interferes with our path and purpose. It’s about awareness, readiness, and complete commitment to elevating your field of opportunity, what ever that may be.

“If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one.”

—Dolly Parton

I grew up in the land of Dolly Parton. A regular season passholder to Dollywood and a child of Lisa Frank and the Delia’s catalog, I believed in rainbows, butterflies, Polly Pockets, and dreams.

The hills that raised me are officially labeled Mohawk, Tennessee. It’s a small land where imagination makes anything possible. In those hills, I wanted to learn as much as I could about everything. I read books, loved school, and independently led my own research projects on topics that fascinated me. I craved knowledge. More than knowledge, I craved the opportunity to get out and see the world.

In 2003, the opportunity to get out presented itself in the form of a full, $150,000 Park Scholar academic scholarship to North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Caro lina. While my college peers were getting in on the ground floor at Google, I was struggling to find my identity and self-worth. Was being an artist a professionally respectable career choice? Society doesn’t really promote that as an option, so I went down the smart, basic path of pursuing a career in law.

Throughout college, I wrestled with the rattlesnake of imposter syndrome, and after being completely unfulfilled in an internship with the North Carolina Attorney General, I abandoned that path and discovered my entrepreneur ial spirit. I had an insatiable desire to prove myself, and I decided to do that within the dance industry instead of the legal field.

I am grateful I had the fortitude to pursue the career path that would set my heart and mind on fire. I’ve always been a Type A hustler. Success has always been the only option. Malcolm Gladwell would attribute this to my categoriza tion as an “eminent orphan,” claiming that “the death of a mother or father is a spur, a propellant that sends them catapulting into life. Because they are on their own, they are forced to persist, to invent, to chart their own way…”

I didn’t lose a mother or a father. I lost both. When I was two years old, my father died heroically in a trucking accident. When I was nine years old, my mother died heroically after an intense battle with breast cancer. My aunt and granny heroically raised me and graciously supported every non conventional whim and passion I decided to explore and follow.

I never spent a considerable amount of time sharing this piece of my history with many people because, even at an early age, I felt like labels can misrepresent a myriad of preconceived notions. I never wanted people to assume anything I accomplished was for any reason other than exceptionally hard work. I remember walking out of high school one day and a kid flippantly saying, “Oh, you only got that scholarship because your parents are dead.” Absurd. I talk about it all now because, with experience, you gain the understanding that owning your past is key to claiming your future. There’s power in acknowledging the pain, but it certainly doesn’t define your existence.

My story led me to where I am today.

Listen up, because:

• Your story is what makes you capable of surviving.

• Your story is what gives you the ability to ignite change.

• I’m learning that it is empowering, and I bet you will, too.

As an only child living this wildly abnormal childhood, I spent a lot of time fostering my creativity. I talked to myself from sunup to sundown and played with my Barbies until I was entirely too old. I had imaginary productions, dance studios, businesses, and classrooms. Whenever the oppor tunity presented itself, I would coax anyone in my vicinity to be in my productions, begging them either to participate or to watch the latest vision in my mind.

I was always slightly interested in being cool, but never interested enough to actually be cool. I hit trends a few months past their time and never quite made it to the “cool crowd” in the social hierarchy of middle school, high school, college, and, well, life. I never wanted to watch R-rated movies without parental permission, and I didn’t drink alcohol until I was twenty-two. I was the epitome of a rule follower. A unifier versus divider, I’ve always attempted to avoid conflict and criticism and achieve happiness— attempted being the key word.

When I opened the first location of my dance studio, I was opening the doors to my heart and the art that had so graciously kept me on a focused, intentional track as I navigated my childhood trauma. The performing arts heal, and I wanted as many people as possible to share in their organic power of therapy. I’m an eternal optimist, so it seemed like a no-brainer in my mind.

In execution, it was slightly more complicated. When busi ness meets art, it becomes like setting choreography. How do you balance passion and profit? I was always creatively minded, but I did not always have the business acumen. It takes time to find a rhythm and culture. Who will you be? What will you represent? How do you balance innovation versus what’s already happening and/or what’s already been done? When others push their influence upon you, how will you stay strong and true to your vision? In the pro cess, there were missteps.

The missteps we experienced involving the competitive dance industry shook us to our core.

Chapter 1: START A FIRE

What could you do all day every day for the rest of your life? For me, the answer is easy. I’ve always loved the performing arts. Give me a show, a song, a big dance number, and I am one happy girl. I’ve always known what I loved, but I didn’t always know why I loved it.

I opened Stage Door Dance Productions in Raleigh, North Carolina, in June 2009—right smack dab in the middle of the housing crisis and recession. My ego was youthfully strong, and nothing was going to get in my way. While

“bubbles were bursting,” I was fearless and ready to take on the world. I knew the dance world better than anything else. I was committed to offering the best of everything I had experienced as a student, as a teacher, within other dance studios and businesses, and of course, in my imagination.

In our first year as a studio, I believed in all the good in the world. I thought everyone was equally passionate, good hearted, and excited about the art of dance. We were going to kumbaya and kickball change together in perfect harmony.

I was eager to jump in and take the world by storm. I received my certification from Carolina Dance Masters/ Dance Masters of America, a nonprofit, educational, com petitive circuit that requires members to test via exam for inclusion.

Once our programming was up and running, I was eager to submit students for competitive events in their fall cycle. It seemed fun, and it seemed like the thing to do to increase our reputation as a strong, new dance training facility.

I was in it to win it and was excited to receive all the tro phies—the bigger, the better!

Looking back, the naive, slightly reckless, youthful excite ment is so evident. I was impatiently ready to achieve victory. I don’t regret it, because the intentions were pure, but there was so much to learn about people, the process, and the overarching purpose.