LIFE LESSONS
How To Spell Gourmet (and Other Lessons From a Spelling Bee Champ)
Lessons I’ve learned that you can apply to your life today
“Spell ‘prematoor’.”
I felt like a deer caught in the headlights — this was my first time on a stage in front of so many people. I didn’t even know how blinding the spotlights were if you looked up; my eyes were still smarting from making that mistake earlier.
Even though it was deathly quiet — so quiet all I could hear was my heart pounding and the feedback from the mic — I still felt rushed in the deafening silence, like time was moving a mile a minute.
My eyes darted back and forth, and I found my parents in the crowd, staring up at me just like everyone else. I tried clearing my throat, but the anxiety made my throat feel parched like I had been stranded in the desert for days.
What was the word again? “Prematoor?!” That’s what it sounded like. I’ve never even heard of that word before— did she mean to say “premature”? I’ve never heard it pronounced like that. I thought it was said with a “ch” sound.
As all these thoughts ran through my mind, I tried to push them away and focus. It was tough. Another stream of negative thoughts came flooding in from a different direction — you’re representing your whole school, what are you going to tell your friends tomorrow morning? You lost on such an easy word? You’re better than that, come on.
I took a deep breath and spelled what I knew. As you can probably tell, I was very nervous that night. So nervous, I had trouble concentrating enough to spell a word I definitely knew and that every middle schooler knows.
I ended up getting it right, but then I lost on “geophagous”. I can live with that. At least my exit wasn’t premature!
Those mistakes tend to haunt us the most, don’t they? The dumb ones, the easily avoidable ones, the careless ones where we know we could have done better but didn’t for whatever reason. Maybe the nerves got to you, maybe you were in a rush and didn’t think thoroughly enough through something.
As an eighth-grader, getting eliminated was my last shot at spelling bee fame. But it was still the furthest I had gotten— I ended up placing eighth in my district bee out of eighty kids, which is where you go to compete with kids from other schools after you win your school’s spelling bee.
As my consolation prize for being a semi-finalist, I got an envelope with $25 in cash from the local newspaper for placing in the top 25% at the district bee. I was also mentioned in the paper the next day briefly by name.
Even though I was disappointed with losing because I wanted to do better (and I knew I could), I was still very pleased with my prize money. It may not seem like a lot to you, but I had never come across a windfall like this in my life before.
I didn’t know how to spend it at first; ultimately, I decided not to spend it and save it forever. I would keep the envelope as a memento of my spelling bee endeavors. It wasn’t about the money; it was about the memories.
How does any of this apply to you? Well, I learned a lot from my spelling bee success and failure, and I still keep these lessons with me to this day. Here I’ll share them with you so you can apply them in your life.
For one, if you have a fear of speaking in public, you’re not alone. “Glossophobia”, or fear of public speaking, is the most common type of social anxiety disorder, and social anxiety disorder is the most prevalent anxiety disorder. In other words, it’s a fairly common phobia.
Being on stage in front of hundreds of people in taught me a lot about myself and my fear of public speaking. After all, the first two steps in change are awareness and acceptance. I was now acutely aware and accepting of the fact that my fear was hampering me from performing to the best of my ability in public.
Next, I can work on a part of my personality that I would have never even known about before. What can you get from this? Get out of your comfort zone. If you are faced with a career decision, for example, and one option pays better and is cushy and easy, but the second is what you’ve really been thinking about deep down, but the pay isn’t as good and it’s in an unfamiliar place, take the second job.
I may not have done this before, but I would now. I promise you’ll learn and grow more from taking the plunge than staying in your comfort zone and being stagnant. Life is about growth; if you’re not growing, you’re dying.
I was no stranger to placing first in my school’s spelling bee and advancing to the next stage — I had won my school’s spelling bee in fourth grade, fifth grade, sixth grade, and eighth grade. In seventh grade, I placed second to a close friend. So at school, I was already the heavy favorite going in. I was accustomed to winning, and the groans from my classmates every year when the classroom bee rolled around because they knew I would win confirmed this.
The victory that stands out most in my mind is when I won my elementary school’s spelling bee in fifth grade for the second year in a row. My winning word was “gourmet”, and I was ecstatic. My school even put my name in a congratulatory message on the school billboard out front so cars could see it as they drove past. I felt like the king of my school, albeit temporarily.
I still remember vividly coming back to my fifth grade homeroom after winning in the library. The spelling bee had just been broadcast to the entire school, and everyone was pumping me up on my victory. I was already a pretty popular kid, but this cemented my social status. I was beaming.
The reason I still remember this win so clearly, though, is because all my classmates made a victory tunnel of sorts with their hands raised for me to walk through when I got back to the classroom. Everyone was congratulating me (it was the thing to do at the moment), but there was one classmate (someone I thought was a friend at the time, mind you), who stuck his foot out to trip me. I saw it and I stepped over it, but it still surprised me.
Even though it was a harmless prank done in jest, in retrospect, it taught me a valuable lesson. No matter what level of success you achieve in life, even if it’s as small as winning your school’s spelling bee in fifth grade, you will come across people who are envious of your success or want to see you fail.
Keep this in mind; simply being cognizant that people like this exist will make you more likely to avoid pitfalls in your career, business, life, and personal relationships. Many times, these people may be those closest to you.
It was a completely novel experience going from that familiar school environment, where I was surrounded by encouraging friends and I had won, to a foreign auditorium on a school night where I ended up losing.
Everyone knows about the Scripps National Spelling Bee televised annually on ESPN, but few know just how difficult it is to make it onto that national stage. You don’t just have to know how to spell — you have to be able to block out the noise (internal and external), the nerves, and still perform to the best of your ability in front of thousands of parents and family members.
For the majority of these kids, it’s the first time they’re in front of such a large audience. Being able to succeed in this environment is a big accomplishment, despite all the memes that the Internet has made with some of the past winners.
What can you learn from this? A few things. For one, Don’t be embarrassed to pursue your passions. I’m not naive; I know the spelling bee isn’t the coolest or most attractive thing in the world. It’s actually the epitome of nerdiness.
But it’s still something I was proud of and something I was good at. Don’t let others dictate your life because they’re not living it. On your deathbed, you won’t be happy you didn’t publish that article or take that job you wanted to because you were scared of what family or friends might think. You’ll be more likely to regret not pursuing your passions because of others.
Secondly, in whatever career you pursue, to make it to the top, you will inevitably need to develop additional talents and skills outside of your profession. For instance, if you’re a physician with a solo private practice or a lawyer with an established law firm, you’ll need to learn effective leadership, communication, and management skills to take your career to the next level. If you’re a researcher and you strike gold with your work, you’ll need to know how to speak well in public to share your results at national conferences.
Just like the spelling bee champs had to be able to block out the nerves and perform well on a stage in addition to knowing how to spell, you will come to a point in your career where you realize additional skills are required that you don’t possess currently. At this point, you’ll come to a fork in the road, and you will decide to go out of your comfort zone and take the unfamiliar path. This key difference separates those select few who push through to the next level of success in their calling.
In case you’re wondering, I did stay true to my promise about keeping the envelope for a few years. Then, one day, I broke and ended up spending it on some CFA senior year of high school for breakfast. I was hungry. After that, the envelope didn’t have the same charm it used to possess. I spent the rest of the money shortly thereafter on various things.
If you’ve been blessed with a quirky talent, treasure it. Nurture it and use it to your advantage. You just might be able to take your talents to the next level.
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